You Wish!
by Shadow Jaganshi
Summary: During a Reikai mission, Kurama vanishes. Hiei is stuck searching for him with Yusuke and three girls, one of them seems to have adopted Hiei as her father...
1. Everything is not Fun

I went through several idea for a chapter name and finally arrived to the conclusion that this chapter is about spirit detectives having a really miserable and crappy job, so it is now titled "Everything is not Fun." Yippee.

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**CHAPTER ONE**

Everything is not Fun

_"Have fun..."_

The group thought back to the last two words Koenma had said as they left his office three days ago. 

They now stood facing a steep, almost perfectly vertical cliff face at least half a mile high.

"Fun? Fun my butt," Yusuke muttered.

"Well... What do we do now?" Kuwabara asked. They stared at the cliff again for a minute, hoping to find a way out of the obvious. There was none.

"Now... We climb," Kurama said. He walked to the cliff and searched for handholds. Finding some, he got a good grip and started up. Hiei followed. Yusuke and Kuwabara were hoping that, for once, Kurama was wrong.

It wasn't until Kurama was already at least 50 feet up the cliff face that Yusuke and Kuwabara gave up and started climbing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It started getting dark when they were only about halfway up the cliff. Kurama led the way up, having spotted a small cave not far from where they were.

"Kurama, how much farther is it?!" Kuwabara whined. Kurama rolled his eyes. The baka had been asking the same question with an exact interval of 15 minutes, 23 seconds every time, ever since he got about 150 feet up the cliff.

Hiei hadn't said a word the entire time; not exactly unusual.

Yusuke had whined a good bit for the first half hour, until Hiei accidentally-on-purpose "knocked" (threw) a rock onto Yusuke's head. With perfect aim, too, because it bounced off Yusuke and hit Kuwabara square between the eyes. 

"A lot farther, but there's a cave about 50 feet up. Hopefully it's big enough for all of us to rest in overnight," Kurama answered.

"A cave?! Man, never trust a cave halfway up a cliff. Freaks and bats live in them. I bet it's really a tunnel leading to a mad scientist's lab or something, and while we're sleeping, he'll come out and kidnap us for experimentation!" Yusuke said.

"Yusuke, that is the biggest word I have ever heard you say," Hiei said. Obviously it was startling to hear Yusuke say a 6-syllable word, since it managed to get a comment out of Hiei.

"What, experimeh... experi... I can't say it again," Yusuke said.

"I pity you, Yusuke," Hiei muttered. He lapsed into silence again.

"Anyway, Yusuke, I severely doubt there's any mad scientists up there... I seriously do," Kurama said.

"Well I don't..."

"Well then you can go ahead and keep climbing all night since you're afraid of some bats and humanoid experimentation!" Kurama snapped. He would have thrown a handful of rocks at Yusuke, but Hiei was between them.

Yusuke was startled by Kurama's outburst and quickly shut up.  Kuwabara, however, continued mumbling and muttering to himself. Kurama heard a curse slip out of Hiei's lips and a dull thud. A split-second later he heard Kuwabara shout.

"HIEI, I SWEAR, IF YOU THROW ANYTHING ELSE AT ME, I'M COMING UP THERE TO KILL YOU!!!"

"Right, baka. Somehow I think you'd have a bit of a problem fighting me while we're hanging onto a vertical cliff face," Hiei muttered.

"I HEARD THAT!"

"No shit, Sherlock! You were supposed to! That's why I said it to YOU!"

"Oh..."

They were quiet again until Kurama finally reached the cave. He pulled himself in and realized that there was a drop of about five feet from the edge of the opening to the cave floor. Hoping that there wasn't anything on the floor that he couldn't see, Kurama climbed over the edge of the opening and lowered himself to the floor. He leaned out.

"There's a slight drop from the opening to the floor," he said loudly. Only Hiei seemed to hear him. He stood on the thin ledge over the floor, looking down.

"Slight drop?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"So I lied. Come on," Kurama said, smiling. Hiei dropped to the floor. He walked into the cave a bit and formed a fireball for light. 

It seemed like a fairly normal cave. One wall glistened from moisture, and somewhere from the back of the cave there was the sound of running water. Hiei walked along the walls to get a judgment of the size of the cave. Just then, Yusuke climbed over the ledge and fell five feet to the floor.

"Kurama! You said a _slight_ drop! That's not slight! That's like... Hiei's height!"

Hiei glanced at the detective. He was lying on the floor staring at the opening.

"You'd better move, Yus---" Hiei started, but before he could finish his sentence, Kuwabara climbed over the ledge and fell in on top of Yusuke.

"AH! THE FLOOR IS SOFT! IT'S SOFT!!! NOBODY MOVE, IT'S PROBABLY TRYING TO EAT US!!! STRUGGLING WILL MAKE IT FASTER!!!" Kuwabara screamed. Hiei snorted. Kurama smiled, amused, while Yusuke glared at Kuwabara.

"Kuwabara, first, I am not the floor. Second, I don't think, even if I was the floor, that I would want to eat you. Third, no matter what the floor was like, as long as it was a natural floor, I doubt it would eat _anybody. Fourth, I cannot breathe, because you are fat, ugly, and you smell like B.O. So, in other words, GET THE HECK OFFA ME!!!" Yusuke snapped, shoving Kuwabara off him. The baka screamed._

"THE FLOOR TALKS!!! URAMESHI! YOU'RE STANDING ON A TALKING FLOOR! LOOK OUT, IT'S GONNA EAT YOU!!!" Kuwabara yelled, hiding behind Kurama.

"Baka," Hiei muttered, continuing on his exploration of the small cave.

"Kuwabara, that was Y--- Whoa, get the heck away from me!!! You really smell awful!!!" Kurama said, covering his nose and mouth with his hand and walking away. Kuwabara looked dejected.

"Even Kurama's dissing me?!" Kuwabara fell to his knees, covering his face with his hands. "OH, CRUEL WORLD!!! WHAT HAVE YOU COME TO?! NOW THE NICEST GUY I KNOW IS BEING MEAN!!!"

The others sweatdropped.

"OH YEAH? WELL I BET YOU SMELL FUNNY TOO, KURAMA!" Kuwabara shouted, jumping up and pointing at the boy.

"Right. _Kurama_ smells funny? All Kurama ever smells like is flowers," Hiei said. As an afterthought, just to make Kurama mad, he added, "How girly."

_*Whack!*_

Hiei experienced the pain of having a rock thrown into his head like a baseball.

"HIEI, SHUT UP! I'M NOT GIRLY!" Kurama yelled. Hiei rubbed his head where the rock had hit.

"That hurt... Baka kitsune..." Hiei muttered.

"YUSUKE SMELLS FUNNY TOO!!!" Kuwabara announced after sniffing him. Yusuke jumped away.

"WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU SMELLING ME FOR?!"

"AND I BET HIEI SMELLS FUNNY TOO!!!" Kuwabara yelled, pointing at Hiei.

"What are you talking about? Hiei always smells funny," Yusuke said. Hiei spun around and flung the fireball, their only lantern, at Yusuke. He dodged and the fire and it hit the damp wall behind him, sizzling to nothingness.

Except for a few rays of light from the moon, the group was in complete darkness. Then, lucky them, a cloud floated over the moon.

"Guys?" Kuwabara said. "Um... I can't see. Hiei? Could you light up another one of those fireball things? Hiei?"

There was absolutely no noise from anywhere in the cave. Kurama and Hiei had been in the back. The tiny bit of light in the cave didn't reach that far. However, Kuwabara could see that Yusuke was standing there with his hands on his hips, squinting into the darkness with a nervous look on his face.

"I TOLD you this was a mad scientist's hideout! Now the freak has Hiei and Kurama!" Yusuke muttered.

"Don't say that, man! That's not good!"

"No shit, Sherlock," Yusuke muttered. The cloud drifted away, allowing more light into the cave, but Kurama and Hiei were nowhere to be seen.

"Maybe they're hiding."

"Hiei? Hide? Come on, you've got to be-- AHHH!!!" Kuwabara cut off his thought with a scream, pointing into the darkness. Two red eyes glowed in the darkness. "EVIL!!! EVIL!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

It seemed, for the moment, Kuwabara had forgotten the color of Hiei's eyes.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Yusuke added. They both commenced with their insane screaming and running in circles and waving of arms. Hiei laughed and lit up another fireball.

"FIRE!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

Yusuke and Kuwabara were running so carelessly that they promptly ran into each other, falling over and finally noticing that they had been right in thinking some insane, violent pyromaniac was in the cave with them. They sat there shivering.

Hiei smiled. "Nervous?"

"AAAHHHHH!!! IT TALKS!!! KILL IT!!! KILL IT!!! IT'S EVIL! PURE EVIL!!!" Kuwabara screamed, scrambling to get away from Hiei. He was still in super-mega-ultra-stupid mode, which is worse than normal. Surprisingly, yes, it _can_ get worse than normal.

"Other than referring to him as an 'it,' and saying to kill him, you are mainly on the right track," Kurama said quietly.

"YES! YOU GUYS DIDN'T GET KIDNAPPED BY THE INSANE MAD SCIENTIST THAT LIVES IN THE HIDDEN LABORATORY!!!" Yusuke screamed, jumping up and hugging the two. Hiei looked disgusting and quickly freed himself from the embrace. Yusuke fell flat on his face, nearly dragging Kurama down with him.

"But... What were those glowy red eyes?" Kuwabara asked stupidly. Kurama sighed. 

"Kuwabara, have you ever looked at Hiei?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Have you ever seen his eyes?"

"Yeah. They're all evil-like."

"They're red," Hiei said. "And they glow sometimes."

"So?"

"So the glowy red eyes were me, you baka!!!" Hiei snapped. His eyes glowed red just then, to help prove his point. Kuwabara screamed.

"AH! HIEI'S EYES GLOW RED! HE WAS THE FREAKY MONSTER IN THE SHADOWS! HE'S EVIL! HE'S GOING TO EAT US! OR SUCK OUR BLOOD OR KILL US IN OTHER ICKY WAYS!!!" Kuwabara screamed, hiding behind Yusuke.

Hiei sweatdropped. Kurama looked quite embarrassed. He had a look on his face plainly saying, 'I can't believe I never let Hiei kill this baka... Now we're stuck with him and I have to put up with him. Maybe _I'll kill him.'_

"Get a life," Hiei muttered. Lightening flashed outside.

"What are we going to do for a fire? I mean, Hiei's got fire, but what are we gonna burn?" Yusuke asked.

"YOU'RE HEAD! MUWAHAHAHAHA!!!" Kuwabara said. They ignored him. Hiei kneeled on the ground with his back to everybody and a second later there was a huge fire at the back of the cave.

"There. That shouldn't go out unless I put it out, or unless some baka puts water on it," he announced. He saw Kuwabara's startled expression. "Don't worry. It's not going to jump out and burn your face off, though it would be nice if did..."

After the insulting, violent threats shot back and forth between Hiei and Kuwabara for a few minutes, they finally stopped and everybody was quiet. Yusuke spoke up after a second.

"Kurama, could you give me a recap on the mission? I wasn't paying attention when pacifier-breath briefed us..."

"Baka," Hiei muttered.

"Yusuke, it would be a lot less troublesome if you would pay attention. It would save you a lot of confusion, and my throat wouldn't hurt from talking..."

"Oh... Well... Uh... I didn't. It's a good thing for the original spirit detective to know why he's doing what he's doing. Like climbing the cliff. I assume we need to climb it because it's the only way to get where we're supposed to be going," Yusuke said. Kurama smiled.

"No. We're climbing this cliff because I felt like making all you get blisters and calluses from climbing, so that way you couldn't fight right and you would die when we eventually meet up with our enemy," he said. Yusuke's jaw dropped.

"You're kidding, aren't you?" He looked at his hands. "OH MY GOD!!! I _do have blisters and calluses!!! You're really trying to kill me!!! You've lost your mind!!! OH MY GOD!!! OH MY GOD!!!"_

Yusuke started panicking. Kurama had to punch him before he finally calmed down.

"No, Yusuke, you were right. I'm joking. We need to get up the cliff to get to where we're going."

"... And where is that?"

"Somewhere in the forest that's on top of the cliff," Kurama said, shrugging. "That's what we're sent for. A young demon princess of sorts has been kidnapped, and her kidnapper is hiding her somewhere in the forest."

"Oh. So it's just a boring, normal, run-of-the-mill kidnapping case?" Yusuke asked. Kurama slapped him.

"No, baka! She's supposed to be a princess. Only... I think something messed up or something and she's not. But she's the rightful heir."

"Oh. So we're rescuing a defective princess? Sounds kinda fairy-tale, fantasyish if you ask me."

"Who asked you, Urameshi? It's not nice to treat a lady so rudely! She's probably very beautiful," Kuwabara snapped. Yusuke rolled his eyes.

"Maybe you'll like her better than Yukina, and poor Hiei will stop having to be so nervous all the time," Yusuke said. Hiei nearly screamed.

"What? Why should Hiei be nervous?" Kuwabara asked stupidly. He narrowed his eyes. "You know, it's strange how every time anybody mentions Yukina, shorty looks all freaked out. And everybody looks at him funny. And starts laughing."

Hiei closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. "Curse you, Yusuke."

"Well?" Kuwabara prompted.

"No reason, really, Kuwabara," Kurama lied. "Hiei's just a perfect gentleman and doesn't like seeing such a small innocent girl like her get influenced by a big klutz of a baka like yourself."

"Yeah right! I'm not a klutz! And besides, I think you're just saying that to cover up for Hiei! I bet he secretly loves her or something! Well let me tell you, Hiei, Yukina wouldn't like some shrimpy little baka like you!"

"Like you know what she'd like! And I don't love her like that!"

_"Like that?? _If you don't love her like that, then how do you love her?"

"I DON'T!"

"The why do you always look so freaked out when people talk about her?!"

Hiei was silent.

"What, no reason? You'd better give me a reason Hiei!"

"Shut up, baka! I'll kill you, I swear I will," Hiei snapped. Kuwabara shut up.

"Well, family moments are just so much fun!" Yusuke said.

"FAMILY MOMENTS?!" Hiei and Kuwabara screamed at the same time.

"What exactly were you implying there, Yusuke?" Hiei asked.

"That... uh... we're just all a big family! And we... uh... act like it... too..."

"Baka," Hiei muttered, walking to the edge of the ring of firelight and sitting with his back against the wall.

"Well, now that I'm done torturing Hiei, I think I'll torture... Kurama!" Yusuke said, smiling. Kurama looked startled.

"Me? You can't torture me. I don't have an explosive temper. It's not as much fun to watch somebody as quiet and friendly as me have a mental breakdown," he said nervously.

"Hm. I remember there was this one story I read on the Internet... Let me think, I'll remember it in a minute... OH! It was a yaoi fan fic---" Yusuke got no farther.

"YOU READ THAT DIRTY PERVERTED STUFF, YUSUKE? GOD, YOU'RE SICK! YOU'RE AS BAD AS SHADOW!!!" Kurama yelled. Then he looked thoughtful. "I wonder how Shadow's doing without Hiei in the house with her."

"I bet she's having a blast," Hiei said dryly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So _that's_ where that went!!! I knew that little twit was stealing stuff!" Shadow said triumphantly, starting to pull handfuls of candy out of Hiei's desk drawer. She smiled.

"I never knew Hiei had a sweet tooth..."

She decided to get revenge. Not only would she take back everything he'd stolen from her, but she would steal something of his. She went to his closet.

Opening it, she found a lot of identical outfits. Most of them consisted of a blue tank top, black pants, and a black cloak. He had a few spare pairs of boots. There were several pairs of regular old jeans and some t-shirts, and a pair of tennis shoes Hiei wore when he wasn't planning on doing any major physical activity. From their condition, it was obvious he never planned on whatever happened when he wore them. They were scuffed and muddy, and the laces were frazzled.

"Now that I see this, I just realized... Hiei has even more clothes than me!" Shadow thought out loud. "That's not right... Isn't it supposed to be the girls are obsessed over clothes and the guys are... obsessed over football or something? Well, I suppose that having 20 identical outfits doesn't count... He gets them shredded to bits anyway, so it figures that he's got so much... Oh well. It's payback time! You steal my candy, I steal your clothes."

She grabbed as many outfits as she could hold, then raced down to her room. She threw them on her bed and went back for more. When Hiei's closet was empty, Shadow went to her closet. She pulled a dress out of a box in the back, went up and hung it in Hiei's closet.

"There! Won't Hiei be happy when he comes back from his mission to find all his clothes missing? If I'm lucky, I'll escape with only _minor fatal injuries."_

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Eventually, the spirit detective group went to sleep. It was raining outside. Typical. Of course something had to come along to make this all harder. If it stopped by morning, then the rocks would be wet when they resumed their climb. If it wasn't done by morning, they'd be stuck climbing in the rain. Not exactly the smartest thing to do. 

Hiei stayed awake for a while. Something Kurama had said about the "princess" had seemed a bit familiar. He couldn't quite place it, and he eventually gave up and fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the group woke up in the morning, it was still raining.

"Well, this'll be fun," Hiei muttered. He extinguished the fire. 

"Kurama, are you sure we should go in the rain like this?" Yusuke asked hopefully. 

"Yes, we should," he answered dryly, already pulling himself out of the opening and into the rain. Hiei followed, jumping over Kurama to a thin ledge, which he landed on and instantly started up the cliff, because he didn't trust the thin ledge to hold him for more than a second.

Miserably, Yusuke and Kuwabara followed.

It didn't stop raining all day. It took the major part of that day to get up the cliff, since the rain was weighing them down, not to mention that it was making the rocks less stable.

Finally reaching solid, flat ground, Kurama sat down under a tree in the forest, where it was, for the most part, dry.

"Hiei, make a fire so we can dry off," Yusuke ordered, dragging himself into the forest.

"Just because I can manipulate fire, it's Hiei do this, Hiei do that, I forgot to bring matches, because I'm a stupid fool! Oh well, what does it matter? Hiei can just want fire to appear, and POW! It appears!" Hiei complained. A huge fire was burning in seconds anyway.

Kurama shivered. "This place is giving me the creeps... _Me of all people. And I'm the nature freak."_

"Yeah, it's giving off some pretty freaky vibes, you know?" Kuwabara muttered, looking around. "But we're not going back, because that girl needs our help, and since **I** am a decent gentleman, we will go help her!"

"Pfft. You? Decent?! Spare me," Hiei muttered, walking deeper into the forest. "Let's get this over with."

Hiei was quite good at hiding his emotions. He felt the 'freaky vibes' too, and he still thought something about the 'princess' seemed familiar, but he hid all this. Because he's a little twit who doesn't know that penning up emotions is a bad thing (Do I sound like a psychiatrist? Hit me if I do).

"Hiei, where are you going? We're still a team, and as long as we're wet and cold, we're staying here," Yusuke complained. Hiei glared back at him, but the fire suddenly got about 300 times hotter to accommodate his complaints.

"Dry yet?" Hiei asked, smiling as Yusuke backed away from the fire.

"No. But I'm gettin' there," Yusuke answered happily, holding his hands out to warm them.

After ten minutes of impatient waiting, Hiei was able to extinguish the fire. The group was finally dry enough to continue. Hiei led them through the forest.

After a short while of leading, Hiei stopped dead and vanished. Everybody was confused for a second until a huge explosion slammed into where Hiei had just been.

"Holy GOD!" Yusuke cried, jumping back. Hiei landed behind the group.

"Ambush attack. One demon. He's not that strong, but he's got some reinforcements on the way," he informed them. They looked at him funny.

"You're a really freaky person sometimes, Hiei," Yusuke said, awed. Hiei smirked and shot off again. He led the demon attacker to a field and killed him just as the reinforcements arrived. One of them had a young girl beside him with a knife to her throat. She had blue hair, and was really puny, not even as tall as Hiei, and was wearing a pure white kimono. Well, it could have been white, but it had mud and dirt stains all over it. Her blue eyes lit up at the sight of Hiei.

"Hiei-san?" she said quietly. She smiled ecstatically. "OTOUSAN!!!"

Hiei's eyes nearly flew out of their sockets. There was one person who ever called him that.

"Mai?" he said cautiously.

"HIEI-SAN REMEMBERS ME!!!" she screamed. "HE STILL CARES, TOO, BECAUSE HE CAME TO RESCUE ME! I _TOLD_ YOU SOMEBODY WOULD COME!!!"

Kurama, Yusuke, and Kuwabara caught up to Hiei just then and drew their weapons against the enemy demons.

"Uh... Who're they?" Mai asked.

"Never mind. They're my friends slash co-workers slash teammates," Hiei answered. "I'm supposing you're the so-called defective princess we were sent to rescue?"

"DEFECTIVE?! Otousan, you haven't changed a bit since I last saw you," Mai answered.

"Otousan?!" Hiei's friends said in unison, looking at him in disbelief.

"It's a nickname! It's not literal!" Hiei said.

"Right..." Kuwabara muttered. Hiei rolled his eyes.

"HEY, WE DIDN'T COME HERE TO CHITTER CHATTER, BAKA REIKAI DETECTIVES!!!" one demon screamed. "OUR BOSS TOLD US TO FIGHT YOU, NOT TALK TO YOU!!!"

Another one of the demons jabbed the one who had just spoken and said something under his breath, pointing at Kurama.

"Oh, yeah. Forgot about that..."

"What?! You were talking about me!" Kurama said nervously. "Don't talk about me without me knowing what you're talking about! What were you talking about?!"

"You."

"Obviously. What did you say?!"

"Nothing..."

"Right..."

"COULD WE JUST ATTACK ALREADY?!" another of the enemies yelled.

"YES WE COULD!!!" the leader replied. They darted in and attacked.

Their enemies weren't exactly high-class. They were weak enough that it wasn't hard to kill them, but they were strong enough that one of them managed to land a punch on Yusuke that sent him backwards into a tree 30 yards away.

"HIEI!" Kurama yelled, pointing behind his friend. Mai was about to be carried off by an evil demon lunatic.

"MAI!" Hiei yelled, for some reason feeling very protective of her. He attacked, cutting off the demon's arm. Its severed arm fell, along with Mai, and the demon ran into the forest. Kurama went after it.

"Are you okay?" Hiei asked. Mai leaped up and wrapped her arms around Hiei's neck.

"Hiei-san! I'm so glad you saved me! I would have died if you hadn't!"

"Yeeeah..." Hiei muttered. "Could you... let go of my neck?"

"Oh. Sorry," Mai muttered sheepishly, letting go and stepping back.

"Hiei! Where's Kurama?" Yusuke asked, running out of the forest into the clearing. He and Kuwabara had chased a couple demons into the forest, so they had missed the whole scene with Mai almost being carried off. Kuwabara noticed the severed arm on the ground.

"THAT'S SICK!!! Hiei, are you cutting people's limbs off?!"

"It was taking Mai. Kurama went after it. He should be back any second now. A one-armed demon is no match for Kurama," the fire demon answered.

"Ah."

They waited a full half an hour, but there was no sign of Kurama. They went searching, but they saw no trace of their friend. They did, however, find the dead body of a one-armed demon.

"Well... seems he killed this one, then something else must have gotten to him. But... I don't see any signs of anything," Hiei muttered, searching around the nearby bushes and trees. "No signs of him going anywhere else after that... He's gone."

"Gone? You mean... dead?" Mai asked.

"Unless Kurama's body just vaporizes when he dies, I'd say he's still alive somewhere. Who the heck knows where, though," Hiei muttered, still inspecting the plants for some sign of a fight, or a trail.

"Find anything?" Yusuke asked.

"Nope."

"Kurama's gone?"

"Yup."

"We gonna go look for him?"

"Nope."

"WHAT?"

"Not now, at least... We have to get Mai back to Reikai. Hopefully Kurama didn't get vaporized or carried off somewhere, because if he did, then we're screwed... Genius fox," Hiei muttered.

"Reikai? I'm going to Reikai? You're leaving me in Reikai, otousan?!" Mai whined.

"Yes. That's the best place for a defective princess water apparition such as yourself," Hiei replied dryly.

"But otousan...!"

"Would you stop calling me otousan!? I'm not your father!"

"Sorry, Hiei-san..." Mai answered. Hiei rolled his eyes.

"Let's go," he muttered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is just some idea that popped into my head. I mean, it might seem kinda pointless right now... And it is... Kinda... But... Whatever. R & R people, tell me what you think. For a random idea, is it any good?


	2. Search Party Forms

**CHAPTER TWO**

Search Party Forms

Eclipse walked in the door. She was rather short, no taller than Hiei, with brown hair that had a blonde streak on one side, and she always wore blue. Blue, blue, blue...

"Shadow!?" she called. She hadn't rung the doorbell, because she knew it was a really evil doorbell, but instead had just walked right in.

Hey, it was unlocked, isn't that just okay?

"SHADOW JAGANSHI, ARE YOU HOME?!" she screamed. Shadow came darting into the room.

"Eclipse! Hi! Look at me! I'm wearing Hiei's clothes!" she said cheerfully.

"That's... nice... Aren't you just ever so slightly afraid of being murdered?"

"No."

"... Oh. I would be. I suggest you go change. Why are you wearing Hiei's clothes, anyway?"

"Because... He's not here, and I want to see how P.O.ed he'll get if he finds out I not only stole his clothes, but wore them too," Shadow answered cheerfully.

"Oooo...kay..." Eclipse said, giving Shadow the 'you are insane and seemingly proud of it which makes it all even worse' look.

"Wanna play cards? Why'd you come here? Bored? Want some highly caffinated soda?"

"Uh... I guess..."

"WOOHOO FOR HIGHLY CAFFINATED SODA!!!" Shadow screamed as she ran into the kitchen for a bottle of Mello Yello.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shadow and Eclipse were playing cards when the door burst open. Tons of shouting and arguing were the first things heard.

"I don't understand why you insisted on coming with me! Reikai is a better place for a person like you! I don't understand why Koenma let you stay with me!" Hiei was saying.

"Because Koenma-sama is a nice person who cares about family togetherness," Mai said. Shadow was up in a second, not knowing who this girl was.

"WHO THE HECK IS THIS GIRL AND WHY IS SHE IN MY HOUSE?!" Shadow yelled, pointing at Mai. "AND WHAT IS THIS ABOUT FAMILY TOGETHERNESS?!"

"SHADOW JAGANSHI, WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD ARE YOU DOING WEARING MY CLOTHES?!" Hiei screamed.

"Hiei-san! You have a wife?!" Mai said, startled.

"HELL NO!!!" Shadow and Hiei said simultaneously.

"I'm wearing your clothes because I felt like it. They fit, and they're comfortable," Shadow answered, shrugging.

"Well, change out of them as soon as possible. By the way, we've got a major problem," Hiei said.

"Major? Like how?"

"Kurama went missing," Hiei answered.

"WHAT! KURAMA IS MISSING!? NOOOOO!!! MISSING HOW?! WHY WEREN'T YOU WITH HIM?! WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?" Shadow screamed.

"Shadow flipped her lid," Eclipse muttered as Hiei walked past.

"Wow, you're so observant," he muttered. He turned back to Shadow. "I'm leaving again as soon as I can so I can go find him."

"And who is this little girl?" Shadow asked.

"Little who?! I'm not little, miss! You'd be best off if you shut up, because---"

"Her name is Mai Youjo. I met her when she was really young, several years ago, and she hasn't forgotten me ever since," Hiei replied, interrupting Mai. "She thinks I'm her father."

"You?! A FATHER?!" Shadow said, laughing hysterically. She stopped so fast, all expression leaving her face, that it made everybody nervous. "What about Yusuke and Kuwabara?"

"They're fine, unfortunately... I mean... er... They're fine. I wish Kuwabara would have fallen over that damn cliff, though... He came so close... I should have pushed him harder..."

"Hiei!?" Eclipse said, startled. "Are you pushing people over cliffs?"

"I tried, but he didn't fall," Hiei muttered sullenly. "Like I said, I should have pushed him harder."

"Hiei... Don't kill Kuwabara. He may seem too stupid to be human, but he is, and you can't kill humans, remember?" Shadow said, shaking a finger in his face. He grabbed her wrist to stop her from poking out his eye.

"I'm going to pack some stuff, then I am turning around and going straight back to that lousy cliff," Hiei said coldly. He turned and walked up the stairs.

"Does Hiei-san live with you?" Mai asked once he was upstairs.

"Yes. Yes he does," Shadow answered, smiling, with her head tilted towards the stairs slightly. A second later she heard what she was listening for.

"SHADOW JAGANSHI, BAKA WOMAN!!! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO!!!"

Shadow snorted, trying to cover up laughter, but a second later when Hiei came down the stairs holding a dress, she couldn't hide it, and burst out laughing.

"YOU'RE WEARING MY CLOTHES, YOU _STOLE_ MY OTHER CLOTHES, AND YOU REPLACED THEM WITH A _DRESS??_ I WANT MY CLOTHES BACK!!!" Hiei screamed. Shadow and Eclipse were rolling on the floor laughing. Mai was appalled.

"How could somebody be so cruel to a sweet guy like Hiei-san?" she said, her mouth hanging open and her eyes the size of dinner plates.

"Sweet?!" Shadow gagged. "Sure he's sweet, probably because he eats all the CANDY I buy!!!"

Hiei turned red, from a cross between anger and embarrassment.

"YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SEARCHING IN MY ROOM AND YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE KNOWN!!!" he shouted.

"WELL WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO WHEN YOU'RE NOT AROUND? JUST SIT AROUND HERE EATING CANDY THAT DOESN'T EXIST BECAUSE YOU STOLE IT ALL? SIT AROUND HERE WATCHING TV AND GETTING FAT?!"

"_Getting fat? You already are fat," Hiei said dryly. Shadow stopped laughing instantly and went stiff. _

"You hit a nerve, Hiei. A very... very... sensitive nerve..." Eclipse muttered, backing away. Shadow slowly walked toward the stairs. At the bottom, she turned and glared at Hiei.

"You want to die?" she asked. "Oh? You do? TODAY'S YOUR LUCKY DAY!!!" She ran up the stairs. Hiei took off up them. Both of them went out of sight of the two girls in the living room. A second later, there was a loud thud, some scuffles and yells, and Shadow and Hiei came tumbling down the stairs together, wildly clawing at each others' faces.

"Are they like this all the time?" Mai asked. Eclipse nodded slowly. "How can Hiei-san put up with something like that?"

"I don't know. I'm surprised he's still alive. I'm surprised any of us are still alive after knowing Shadow..." Eclipse said, her voice strangely high-pitched and spaced-out sounding.

"..."

"SHADOW! LET GO OF ME!"

"TAKE IT BACK! APOLOGIZE!"

"I'M SORRY! I TAKE IT BACK! LET _GO!!!_"

Shadow had been holding Hiei's wrist with one hand, digging her nails in. She hadn't cut them in about a week, so they were long enough to draw blood. She had had her other hand on Hiei's throat.

Hiei sat up, watching a drop of blood trickle out of the fingernail wound.

"God, you're vicious," he muttered. He quickly licked the blood off and headed back upstairs. He stopped halfway up. "Now, I need my clothes, because I don't intend on wearing the same outfit I've been wearing for two days, for another week or more."

"Okay, fine... I'm coming with you, by the way," Shadow said, pushing past him and going up to her own room.

"What?! You can't come! All you'll do is make it harder! Shadow! Are you listening to me?!"

"No I'm not!" Shadow answered. Hiei sulked up the stairs after her, muttering under his breath to himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kurama slowly regained consciousness. He looked around. He could see dark, blurry shapes around him; nothing he could recognize. After a second, his vision cleared up a bit. He sat up.

From what he could tell, he was in a room made of concrete, or some similar material. That made no sense, because the last thing he remembered, he'd been in a forest. The only light came from a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and it was very dim. There were no windows, and the door made Kurama suddenly think of a prison cell door, the old solid type with a small sliding opening near the top to look through.

He shuddered. He had a strange, creepy feeling. The room had an oddly familiar vibe to it. One that he most certainly did not like, because it reminded him of... 

He shuddered again. Definitely not liking the feeling of this. He stood up. It seemed that somebody was in the room with him.

"Hello?" he said cautiously. All of a sudden he was overcome by the eerie feeling as an all-too-familiar energy swept over him.

"Yes, you remember me, I should hope, Kurama," said a voice. It was cold, but had a certain lustful tone to it. Instantly, Kurama shuddered and realized he had been right to dislike the vibe he had been getting.

"K... Karasu?" Kurama said nervously, stepping back.

"That's right, my friend." Karasu stepped out of the shadows by the wall and walked forward until he stood only three feet away from Kurama.

The boy let out a little squeak. "But... but you're..."

"Dead? Yes, I know that's how it seemed... But... Koenma is really quite easy to manipulate," Karasu said lazily.

"What?" Kurama said meekly.

"I bribed him."

Kurama's eye twitched and a whimper escaped his throat. He tried to say something, but it seemed that his throat had sealed up and no words were coming out anytime soon.

"Yes... Koenma sure is a sucker for squid..."

Kurama's eyes get about ten times their normal size, and he felt like he was about to cry. 

"I gave him about fifty of those squid-on-a-stick things that they were selling at the Dark Tournament, and he instantly turned me around and sent me back to Earth alive."

Koenma let Karasu come back to life for _squid?!_ Karasu, the man who had tried so hard to do so many twisted things to Kurama during the tournament, was allowed to return to life so he could go about his harassing, just because of some measly squid!? Fifty! He could have at least tried for a higher number, like, around  two thousand! This was Kurama he was putting at risk here!

Kurama made a mental note to murder Junior when he saw him next. _If he saw him ever again. Karasu continued._

"I probably could have used my body... But I decided not to. The squids worked fine, and now I've still got my body to use on _you, Kurama."_

That sentence caused complete mental overload. Kurama passed out. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"_You're coming too?" Hiei asked skeptically, looking at Eclipse and Mai. Eclipse nodded._

"Of course we are, Hiei! Kurama's my friend too, and besides, I can't trust you and Shadow alone in the wilderness for who knows how long!" she replied.

"Trust us...?" Hiei said, confused. Shadow knew what Eclipse meant and punched her in the head.

"You are a SICK person!!! I swear to God! We're going on a search-and-rescue mission here! Not a 'let's-go-out-in-the-wilderness-and-supposedly-search-for-our-friend-but-really-be-doing-naughty-things-together' mission!!!" she screamed, shaking her friend the entire time. She finally dropped her. Eclipse fell over with swirls for eyes.

"That's friendly..." Mai muttered, staring at Eclipse. "Hey, I don't have any changes of clothes, so if anybody has anything they'd like to donate to me for this trip, I'd be happy."

"All we have is black. Eclipse has blue. We're the solid color type of people..." Shadow said. "I'm assuming you like white?"

"I don't care what I wear, as long as it fits comfortably."

"In that case, I might have something," Shadow said. "I'll be right back." She ran upstairs.

"This is stupid. I wanted to go alone. I wanted to leave YOU in Reikai," Hiei said, pointing at Mai, "and Eclipse and Shadow should stay here and waste their time playing cards or something!"

"Why? We could be helpful, you never know!" Eclipse said, standing up and dusting herself off.

"I doubt it, girl," Hiei said coldly.

"I HAVE A NAME, YOU KNOW!!!" Eclipse screamed.

"Obviously. Doesn't everyone?"

"No. I knew this guy once, and he never told anybody his name, so we just all ended up calling him That One Guy. That was his name," Eclipse said. "Well it eventually turned out that he got sick of that and he told us his name was Bob. I liked 'That One Guy' better and kept calling him that. He tried to put out my eyes."

Mai laughed. Hiei snorted.

"You deserved it," he said.

"Did not! Cuz eventually it turned out that Bob wasn't his real name either," she replied indignantly. "Like I said, he didn't have a name!"

Just then, Shadow came back downstairs with several bags slung over her shoulders. She handed each person their bag (except Hiei; he already had his).

"Mai, you'd best deal with whatever's in there, cuz those are the smallest clothes I could find. I don't exactly keep my clothes from as long ago as when I was as scrawny as you," Shadow said. "LET'S GO!" She led the way out the door, ignoring everybody else's comments and grumbles on anything that had happened in the past hour.

"Hey Hiei, did you tell Koenma about this?" Eclipse asked.

"This what?"

"Well, this girl. And Kurama vanishing. And you and us going to find him. Did you tell him any of this?"

"Well, Mai is part of the mission I was gone on. Turns out that she was the one we were sent to rescue. Obviously, he knows Kurama vanished since when we went to Reikai, Kurama wasn't with us. And if he hasn't got the IQ to figure out that Kurama is my best friend and I actually care enough to go looking for him, I don't know how he ended up becoming Prince of Reikai in the first place," Hiei answered. 

"How do you define vanished?" Shadow asked. "Was he kidnapped? Did something kill him? Did he jump over a cliff? Did he go swimming and not come back up to the surface?"

"He went into the forest after the freak whose arm I cut off to save Mai, and didn't come back out, and eventually we found the body of the demon, but no Kurama," he replied dryly. "I can't believe I let you three come along with me. This is nuts. Three girls, two of them half-breeds, one of them having no idea how to fight, and me. This is the worst team I have ever heard of. It's even worse than when Kurama and I first cooperated with Yusuke on a case and Kuwabara was there and we were all trying to rip each other's throats out. Wait... That was mainly just Kuwabara being stupid enough to try to rip out my throat, and me provoking him because it was funny... But anyway, this is worse than that."

"Gee, thanks, Hiei. You're just such a great person," Shadow said sarcastically.

"Aren't I though?" Hiei said cheerfully. Shadow snorted.

"Yeah, maybe once I finish freezing Hell with an ice cube you will be..."

"Wow! Do you really want to wait that long for Hiei-san to change?" Mai asked. Shadow sweatdropped.

"Hiei, not only is this girl dumb, but she's the second stupidest person I know! She'd get along great with Kuwabara."

"Kuwabara?! That bumbling human dolt? I hate him! He's not only the stupidest person I know, but he's really dumb, too!!!"

"Hey, wow, you to have actually got something in common!" Hiei said, looking from Shadow to Mai. The two girl glared at each other and were instantly walking on opposite sides of Hiei.

"Now, now, children, let's all try to get along..." Eclipse said nervously. Shadow glared at her.

"You die now, Eclipse Shinomori," she said, running after the scared girl. The two of them were running circles around Hiei and Mai, who were still walking, for at least an hour. Finally, Shadow stopped, having completely forgotten what she was chasing Eclipse for. They both collapsed.

"Baka. You went and used all your energy," Hiei said, annoyed. He started to walk past, but Shadow reached up and grabbed his ankle, tripping him.

"No, you're not going anywhere! Just walk off and leave us behind like that, you would?" she said. "I think not. We'll stay here for the night."

"Yeah, see, it's already getting dark," Eclipse said, pointing at the sky. The sun was behind a cloud.

"Oh yeah, that's real dark, Eclipse. All we're going to do is waste time we could be looking for Kurama," Hiei said.

"We don't even have anything to go on, except that he's gone. Besides, you have to find some way up that huge cliff other than climbing, since that is physically impossible for a person such as myself," Shadow said. "I am not some macho 'woo-look-at-me-I'm-strong' type of person, I'm more of the weak 'you-mess-with-me-and-I-have-enough-strength-to-whip-your-ass-and-find-my-way-to-the-hospital-afterwards-before-I-pass-out-from-exhaustion' type of person."

"Yes, obviously."

"Are you sure we shouldn't bring Yusuke along?"

"Not if he doesn't want to come."

"What?"

"If he volunteered to, I would have agreed, but he didn't."

"Well that's cuz he's an ass hole," Shadow answered. Hiei shrugged.

"Hn. True."

"Glad you agree. Good night," Shadow said. She pulled her bag off her back and put it under her head as a pillow.

"Otousan, who is Kurama?" Mai asked. "I mean, I must have seen him, because I know there were three other people when I first saw you, but I don't remember him."

"Long red hair, green eyes, tall, and he was wearing white."

"Oh. Yeah, okay, I think I remember him now."

"Good for you," Hiei said dryly. He dropped his bag and walked away.

"Otousan! Where are you going?" Mai yelled.

"I'm just going to wander around here for a little while. Don't worry, I'm not just abandoning a bunch of nearly helpless girls in the wilderness. I might not be very caring, but I've got honor enough not to do that," Hiei said. He vanished into the forest.

"He's a loser, Mai. Why do you call him otousan?!" Eclipse asked.

"Because... Hiei-san is a really nice guy. He saved me twice! Yesterday being the second time, and the first time we met was because he saved me. I stayed with him for a while after that, before he just left one day. I vowed I would find him again, and now I have!"

"... Do you like... love him or something?" Eclipse asked.

"Otousan? Hiei-san? I love him as a father, nothing more."

"But... he's not your father."

"I wish he was. Then he wouldn't go and ditch me like he did."

"Don't be so sure..." Eclipse muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing!"

"Are you saying that if Hiei-san had kids, he'd just leave them somewhere alone in the forest?" Mai asked, horrified.

"Maybe, but I don't think he's going to have kids anytime soon... I think he's got his sights set on Shadow, and she's not quite into the whole kids thing, you know? Especially with Hiei. I think she likes Kurama better..." Eclipse said. No sooner was this out of her mouth than two black forms pounced on her.

Insert cloud of cartoony dust and stars and random shouted curse words.

"I HAVEN'T GOT MY SIGHTS SET ON ANYONE!!!"

"KURAMA?! KURAMA TRANSFORMS INTO THAT PERVERT FOX! I HATE HIM!"

"GOD HELP ME, I'M BEING MURDERED!"

"I REFUSE TO HAVE KIDS!"

"IF I LIKED KURAMA, THEN THAT WOULD PLEASE THAT DAMN FOX, BECAUSE HE KNOWS EVERYTHING THAT KURAMA IN HIS HUMAN FORM KNOWS!!! AND I'M NOT ABOUT TO HAVE ANY KIDS ANYTIME SOON EITHER!!! I'M FIFTEEN!!!"

"HEEEELLLLLPPPPP!!!"

Mai stared at the screaming ball of dust until finally Eclipse came flying out and slammed into a tree trunk. The dust and stars subsided and Shadow and Hiei were left standing there glaring at Eclipse. They realized how close they were, and they both seemed to vanish, then reappear at opposite ends of the clearing.

"How sweet," somebody said. "They're afraid of each other!"

Shadow spun around. "YUSUKE!" she shouted happily. Then she looked mad. "Baka lil' ass, you sneak up on me one more time like that and make some lame comment, I'll rip your heart out and feed it to you through your nose! GOT THAT?!"

"Yes ma'am!" he said sarcastically.

"Where's the real baka?" Hiei asked, looking around nervously.

"Kuwabara? Oh, I told him I was going out to buy some donuts. He's still at his house. He probably won't get suspicious until tomorrow morning when he decides he wants leftover donuts for breakfast and discovers nobody ever bought any donuts."

"Oh good. By then, even with three girls, we'll be far enough ahead he'll never catch up. Thank God you came, by the way, because if you hadn't I'd have been stuck with three girls until I found Kurama. Then I'd still be stuck with three girls... Just not alone..."

"Well, I take it we're camping here for the night?"

"Yeah, thanks to Shadow," Hiei said. Shadow smiled innocently.

"Okay, that's fine with me! I ran most of the way here anyway, just to catch up with you guys. I'm tired."

Yusuke suddenly fell asleep standing up. Very talented. A second later his legs gave out and he fell flat on his face, still not waking up.

"That's smart," Shadow muttered sarcastically. She lay down with her head on her bag and fell asleep almost as fast as Yusuke had, only she wasn't standing up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Karasu gazed at Kurama's unconscious form, he was overcome with feelings and several rather disgusting, perverted ideas of what to do to the poor boy. He managed to control himself. He knelt beside Kurama.

"Kurama, wake up," he said quietly, shaking him. Kurama groaned.

"Hnnn... I don't..." he mumbled, waking up. He suddenly froze. Somebody was gently running their hand down his leg. He didn't like that, because last time he checked, he didn't know of anybody who would do that while he was asleep. Or while he was awake, either, come to think of it. Wait.

His eyes snapped open. Karasu's face was above him. Karasu's hand was on his leg. Kurama screamed and jumped up and backwards so fast he nearly fell over. Luckily, the wall was behind him. He leaned on it for support.

"Stay away from me! Don't touch me, you gay pervert!" Kurama yelled.

"Oh dear. You have no idea how hard it is for me to hear that from you, Kurama. I thought of all the people in the world, _you_ might understand my needs. But now I see you're just like everybody else in this world..." Karasu said chokingly. He sniffled. "You're just like everyone else! You're just a stuck-up bastard who thinks he's better than everyone else! Too good to explore new experiences!"

Karasu ran crying from the room.

"Well that was... odd..." Kurama muttered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think Kurama said it best. "Well that was odd…" Heh. Sorry, this is just slightly disturbing, I'm writing this story on a sugar high… Two chapters in one day, that's pretty good, right? Heh heh heh heh… *start laughing insanely*

R & R Pleeeez


	3. Not Open Minded?

Note from author: Just in case you are wondering, I am not going to make poor Kurama gay. And there will be not lemon or any stuff like that in this story. Karasu is a gay freak that insists Kurama is not open-minded. I suppose he kidnapped him to open his mind or something... Please R & R, because I am so scared of myself at this moment, I'm almost afraid to write this story because I can't believe it's coming out of my mind, but if enough people like it, I'll continue. So far, everybody has liked it. This chapter is a bit odd.

**CHAPTER THREE**

Not Open-Minded?

"Otousan! How much farther?" Mai whined. Hiei clenched his teeth. She was bad as Kuwabara. Possibly worse. Kuwabara didn't call him otousan... 

Hiei'd found them an easier route to the forest on top of the cliff. Granted, it wasn't 100% better, there were still parts they had to climb, but at least it wasn't half a mile of vertical cliff face. Also, he knew it would take longer to go around this way, but it was better than having everybody behind him whining and complaining about rocks hurting their hands every two seconds.

Mai had complained the first time they had a 20-foot climb. Hiei hadn't even climbed it. He'd jumped up. So had Yusuke. Shadow and Eclipse had had no problem climbing it, but Mai had taken so long that Hiei had eventually got so sick of waiting he picked her up and jumped up again.

"Would you stop calling me otousan!? I am not your father, nor do I intend to become your father, or anyone's father, for that matter. I am sick of you complaining, I am sick of you slowing us down, and I'm sick of putting up with you! Just because you knew me several years ago does not give you special permission to be a pain in the ass!" Hiei yelled, his temper finally exploding. "Now I expect you to shut up, only speak when you're spoken to, and only complain if something REALLY bad has happened to you! Not blisters and sore feet!" He sped up, leaving Mai standing where she was, on the verge of tears.

Shadow, being a heartless fool, passed her by just as easily as if she had been a dead tree stump, because frankly, she had been getting sick of her too, and the only thing that had kept her from exploding on Mai was the fact that she thought Hiei would be mad. Obviously, Hiei didn't think of her as fondly as she thought of him.

Eclipse passed Mai cautiously, not knowing what to say, but not being a heartless witch like Shadow. She smiled slightly and kept walking. Only Yusuke had a heart. He put his arm around her shoulders and led her along beside him.

Shadow caught up to Hiei. He was walking along muttering under his breath. She caught the word 'girl,' and several swear words, along with a couple words associated with murder and death.

"Hiei?"

"What? I don't want to hear some lecture about being rude to girls, because I don't give a---"

"I was NOT going to lecture you, I was going to thank you, baka!"

"Thank me? What for?"

"For getting her to shut up. I mean, it might have been a bit rude, but she shut up, and that's all that matters to me, because I'm a heartless witch," Shadow said.

"You seem quite proud of that."

"I am!"

"Good for you. I'm a heartless bastard, so I guess we just make the perfect pair, right?" Hiei said dryly. Shadow stopped and watched him continue walking like he hadn't even noticed her stop.

"Shadow? What's wrong? Don't tell me you're going to cry to!" Eclipse said, running up to her friend.

"I DON'T CRY, BAKA! No, Hiei just called himself a heartless bastard and said we make the perfect pair. The perfect pair thing was sarcastic. I think he's having a mental overload from this whole thing... Nobody annoy him. He'll kill you," Shadow warned.

"Yes, obviously," Yusuke said, passing them up with Mai still crying into his side. "Heartless bastard..."

"Yusuke! Listen to yourself! Hiei has a heart! It's because he has a heart that he's being such a bastard!" Shadow said.

"So?! It doesn't change the fact that he yelled at Mai, and now look at her!"

"Yusuke, she needed it! If Hiei hadn't said something soon, I would have been doing a bit more than yelling at her!" Shadow snapped. Mai wailed even louder. Shadow let out a disgusted sigh and spun around, walking up the trail after Hiei. Eclipse followed with a 'Sorry, I can't help you,' shrug directed at Yusuke.

When Shadow got around the bend, she found Hiei had already climbed the next wall and was waiting for her at the top. She climbed up quickly, but when Hiei turned to continue, she stopped him.

"Now don't get mad at me for this, but you really do need to relax a bit," she said. Hiei glared at her.

"Don't start telling me what to do, Shadow. I thought out of all my friends, I could trust you to keep your mouth shut about how I was acting. I have a feeling that before any of us find any trace of Kurama, we're going to kill each other first. And it's probably going to be my fault. Let's just concentrate on getting to the top of this damned cliff, and after that, we're going to find Kurama. Okay? Now let's go," Hiei said. He turned and walked up the narrow trail.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kurama paced the room nervously. After Karasu had run crying from the room yesterday, he hadn't seen him. In a way, that was a good thing, because Karasu made him as nervous as was humanly possible. Or demonly possible, for that matter.

But in a way, it was a bad thing too, because he was locked in this room with no way out, no food, no water, and if the guy he assumed was taking care of him suddenly started hating him, he couldn't do anything to help himself. Except something he knew Karasu would suggest, but that he would rather die than submit himself to. The door slid open. Kurama spun around.

"Hello, Kurama," Karasu said coldly. 

_Okay, back to being a cold-hearted murderer now?_ Kurama thought. _Thank God. Hopefully he isn't the type of cold-hearted murderer who rapes his victims before killing them._

"Hello," Kurama said nervously. Karasu came toward him.

"Are you hungry?"

Not sure whether Karasu meant this in a perverted way or not, Kurama shook his head no.

"Good, because all there is to eat is squid."

"Damn, man! You really used squid to bribe Koenma!?" Kurama said. He still couldn't believe it.

"It worked," Karasu said, shrugging. Kurama shuddered.

"Damn that little pipsqueak. He's _so_ dead if I ever see him again..."

"If you ever see him again? Already giving up hope, Kurama?"

"Ptht."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Karasu asked, narrowing one eye.

"Exactly how it sounds. It's supposed to mean ptht, and that's what it means. Would you mind leaving now?" Kurama asked hopefully. Karasu laughed.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily, my friend."

"Would you stop calling me your friend?! I'm not your friend! I'm your enemy! I killed you, remember?"

"But I came back to life, so it all turned out okay in the end. I forgive you."

Kurama rolled his eyes. This guy was way too easy-going. When somebody kills you, you're supposed to hate them. This guy was going against his own words.

"Whatever happened to, 'When I like something, I like to take it away?'" Kurama asked, crossing his arms.

"That? That's just something Bui told me to say. He said it'd scare you," Karasu replied. "And judging by the expression on your face when I said it, it worked."

Kurama was shaking. He couldn't tell whether he was mad or scared. It was a mixture of both. He felt slightly light-headed, but he wasn't about to pass out again; not after what that hormone-driven gaybo had done last time. Touching him like that... Perv.

"So, what do you say, Kurama? Do you think your friends will come to rescue you? Or will they decide that since there was no sign of a struggle or any path, that you must have died and vaporized on the spot, and you'll be stuck here with me for the rest of your life, which, as a spirit fox, is a very long time, I'm assuming," Karasu said, moving closer to Kurama. He backed into a corner.

"They'll come. If Hiei has anything to say about it, they'll come," Kurama assured him.

"Oh... Then I only have a short time to be with you," Karasu said seductively. Kurama shuddered.

"Back off, fag," he muttered, attempting to walk across the room. Karasu grabbed his arm.

"If I were you, I wouldn't make another movement," he warned. Kurama suddenly remembered Karasu's ability to blow stuff up with one touch. He relaxed his entire body, hoping to hide any signs of fear.

"Good. Good, good, good," Karasu purred. He let go of Kurama's arm. The boy turned to face Karasu, taking a few steps away in the process.

"How long are you planning on keeping me here?" he asked.

"As long as I feel. I never had somebody like you in my possession before, I plan on using this to my fullest advantage," Karasu replied. Kurama shuddered so badly he almost went into violent convulsions. He spun around, walked to the corner farthest away from where Karasu stood, and sat down, pulling his knees up to his chest.

"What's wrong? Don't you find me attractive?" Karasu asked.

"You're a man, right?"

"Yes, of course!"

"I am not attracted to other men. I'm straight. I am not gay, no matter how many screwed up people may think it."

Karasu smiled. "I take it that you are not attracted to me, Kurama."

"Not in the least."

"I understand."

"You do?"

"Yes, but that doesn't keep me from finding you attractive."

_DAMN! This man just never gives up, does he?!_ Kurama thought. _Maybe I really should kill him again. If it'd keep him from harassing me like this, I would, gladly._

"Well... uh... Can you leave? I want to be alone."

"Why be alone when we can be together?" Karasu asked, sitting down beside Kurama.

~Does a cut screen. The Kurama/Karasu situation is paused and shown small in the corner. The main screen shows Hiei, Shadow, and the others standing on a rocky cliff. This, too, zooms out and goes to the corner above Kurama and Karasu. The main screen now shows a girl (who has an amazing resemblance to Shadow...) scribbling furiously on a notebook, muttering and scribbling, muttering and scribbling. Hiei is standing over her shoulder~

HIEI: Kurama sent me to file a complaint. He's strongly displeased with your story. He's just not telling you himself because he's afraid of you.

GIRL: Shut up, Hiei. Tell Kurama to go jump into a swimming pool full of razor blades. I am the author; perverted, twisted, and disgusting as I may be, I am, and it's not my fault. It comes from hanging out with the people that I do.

HIEI: That won't go over well with him.

KARASU: *walks through the door carrying a tray of hot chocolate. He leans over and reads a few lines of the story* Yes, very good. I like it.

GIRL: *whispers* See the people I hang out with, Hiei?

HIEI: *looks at Karasu nervously* Wow, thank God Kurama sent me... I understand your pervertedness now, and I forgive you and I shall explain it all to Kurama. Good-bye! *vanishes*

KARASU: Kurama?! Where? Where is he? *looks around, desperately searching for Kurama*

GIRL: He's not here. He's... somewhere else. Don't worry, just keep telling me what to write in this story and I'll be okay.

KARASU: Let's see... Well... 

~Karasu and the author girl (who strongly resembles Shadow) start talking and drinking hot chocolate. The screen with Hiei and the others zooms up, gets scribbled all over and falls apart, and the screen with Kurama and Karasu is behind it.~

Karasu put his arm around Kurama's shoulders.

"Stop it!" Kurama snapped. "All you're doing is scaring the living Hell out of me; I suggest you stop it!"

"But Kurama-chan... Why can't you just cooperate?"

"Because I'm. Not. **GAY**!!!" Kurama answered, standing up. Karasu followed him.

"But can't you just relax?"

"NO!"

"You're not very open-minded," Karasu pouted, crossing his arms.

"I'm perfectly open-minded, just not in this type of situation!"

"Then you're not open-minded enough," Karasu whispered, coming closer.

"Get. The Hell. Away. From _me!_" Kurama snapped. He was trapped in a little room with a gay man insisting he was not open-minded enough about being gay. He was having horrible images come into his head, not sure whether it was his own mind or Karasu putting them there, but whichever it was, he wanted them gone. This was torture in the highest manner.

"Please?"

"NO!"

"Kurama!"

"NO!"

"Why not?"

"I'M NOT GAY!"

"Be open-minded!"

"NO!"

"KURAMA!!!!"

"**NO!"**

This went on for quite a while. Let's see how Hiei and the others are doing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hiei? Shouldn't we set up camp?" Shadow suggested. "It's dark already."

"We're fine."

"I'm not," Yusuke complained. "Why do _you_ have to be in charge?"

"Because I am. If you've got a problem, either fight me or turn back."

"Fight you?! What are you, insane?! On this tiny little path?"

"There'll be NO fighting!" Shadow snapped. "If you two are going to be arguing like this for the rest of the trip, I'm going to have to do something about it."

"Like what?! You can't do anything to us," Yusuke said.

"You're forgetting I'm a half breed fire demon. _Fire_ demon. Like Hiei."

"_Half breed."_

"You're only half, too, and look at you, dumbass!"

"Oh... Oh yeah. I forgot about that. But you're a girl, and you've never fought anyone in your life."

"YOU WANNA BET? You know nothing about me, baka," Shadow snapped. "You're forgetting I lived in Makai for what... 13 years? Actually 14. You think somebody can live alone in Makai, a _girl_ can live alone in Makai, without fighting somebody at some point?!"

"Well you're not as strong as me, or Hiei, and you couldn't hurt either of us," Yusuke said, sounding quite sure of himself. Shadow was on top of him in a second, and punched him straight in the eye.

"MY GOD, BITCH!"

She punched him across the face, giving him a bloody nose.

"Shadow!" Eclipse yelped, grabbing her friend and dragging her away from Yusuke. "Yusuke, you really haven't got many brain cells."

"Good going, Shadow," Hiei whispered, smiling.

"SUCKER!" Shadow screamed at Yusuke. The boy glared at her, his eye already swelling up and his nose bleeding like mad.

"If you EVER---" he started, coming towards her. Hiei calmly stepped between them.

"We'll camp here. If you don't mind, I think you've learned that Shadow can do a bit of damage. I'd stay away from her if I were you, because if I'm right, she's not carrying around a katana for no reason."

For the first time, everybody noticed Shadow had a sheathed sword strapped to her back.

"Suckers," she said, sticking out her tongue. She pulled her arm out of Eclipse's hold and walked along to the next cliff. It wasn't very high, and at the top was a large flat area, large enough for them to camp on.

"Up we go!" She started climbing. Eclipse and Hiei followed. Mai was still miserable and wanted to stay away from Hiei. Yusuke let her hang onto his back while he climbed so she didn't have to work. 

He was way too kind to her now, in Hiei's opinion. Just because she got yelled at, she is now taking advantage of somebody who has a heart. Typical. Hiei couldn't believe he'd actually cared about her at one point. She was just a leech. He'd been kind to her, taken care of her, and because of that she had seemed to return his care, but now he saw she was just a little leech, hanging off of whoever would let her, just so she wouldn't have to work or do anything for herself.

Shadow pulled off her backpack, threw it on the ground as a pillow, and curled up to sleep. Hiei and Eclipse were nearby, lying the same as her, with their packs as pillows. Yusuke and Mai were a short distance away from the others, sleeping even closer together than Hiei was to Shadow and Eclipse. And he wasn't very far from them. Mai and Yusuke were practically touching.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Kuwabara drifted off to sleep, a random thought drifted into his head.

_I wonder why it's taken Urameshi two days to buy donuts...?_

~ ~ ~

If there's a lot of spelling errors, or grammar errors, or any other kind of error, it's because I didn't reread the entire thing to fix it. I sent it through Microsoft Word's Spell check. Since Computers are supposed to be so smart, then it should be fine, right?


	4. A New Acquiantance

Okay, this chapter is a bit strange. There's nothing about Kurama or Karasu in it. But… From the title of the chapter, I'm sure you can tell they meet somebody new. Well, all I can say is that it's not your average standard everyday type of person… If you can call it a person… More like… a reptile?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**CHAPTER FOUR**

A New Acquaintance

When Yusuke woke up, he found Mai curled up against him. Managing to get up without waking her, he walked over to check on Shadow, Hiei, and Eclipse. They had all moved around a good bit during the night. Hiei had his head on Shadow's leg. Eclipse was lying halfway upside-down with one leg straight up in the air against the cliff wall.

Yusuke wished he'd brought a camera. These people had odd sleeping patterns. It was already getting light, so he nudged Hiei in the ribs.

"Hey, get up, Hiei," he said. The little demon opened one eye, looking up at Yusuke for a second. Then he looked at his 'pillow.' Realizing he had been sleeping on Shadow's leg, he sat up so quickly it somehow woke up Shadow.

"Hmmmnnnn?" she mumbled, looking around. "Aahn?"

"Get up. Time to get started again," Hiei said sleepily, yawning. Shadow was looking at Yusuke.

"Still hate me?" she asked. Yusuke's left eye was swollen shut.

"I'll take that as a stupid question. I think you broke my face," he said.

"Stop whining," Shadow teased. Yusuke narrowed his eye.

"Shutup."

"Yeah, whatever." Shadow stood up and walked to Eclipse. She jabbed her in the side. "Hey, ya lazy bag of bones! Getup."

Eclipse didn't move.

"WAKE UP, YOU LAZY LITTLE GIRL!!!"

No response.

"Hm... DINNER!!!"

**BOOM!**

"WHERE AT?!" Eclipse asked, looking around greedily. Hiei sweatdropped. 

"No where, baka. It's just a way to get you to wake up."

"What? Curse you, Shadow! I was dreaming about food, I thought maybe it wasn't a dream!"

"Merry Christmas," Shadow said dryly, tossing a small bag of jerky to Eclipse. "Don't eat it all in five minutes."

"Okee Dokee." Eclipse paused. "I'll eat it in six minutes."

"Give me that, baka!" Shadow snapped, snatching away the bag. "If you're going to be like that about it, I'm keeping all the food with _me."_

"What?! You'll eat it even faster than I will!"

"Yeah right! I don't eat 24/7!"

"Neither do I!"

"Yeah, you eat 23 and three fourths/7!!!"

"SO? That's not 24/7!"

"Baka! Close enough!"

"But it's not!"

"Dufus. Loser. Retard. Baka. _Mentally damaged Bulgarian llama_!"

"Huh?" Question marks flew around Eclipse in erratic patterns.

"I said... **MENTALLY DAMAGED BULGARIAN LLAMA**!!!" 

"I think not!"

"FINE! YOU'RE A COW! MOOOO!" 

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"_Am not!"_

"**Are too!"**

"_Fine! If I'm a cow, then you're a whale!"_

"Whales are cool!"

"They're fatter than cows!"

"No! I'm an evil flying GoatSheepWhale, ruler of all beans!!!" 

Shadow waved her arms like wings and went in circles, obviously doing an impression of an evil flying GoatSheepWhale (whatever the heck that is).

"Yeah, beans are _really_ something worth ruling," Eclipse said dryly.

"Peh. It's more than you rule!"

"So?"

"SO I'm better than you!"

"ARE NOT!"

"AM TOO!"

"_ARE NOT!"_

"**_AM TOO!_" **

"ARE **NOT**!!!"

"**_AM TOO!!!_" Shadow's teeth were a jagged line, her eyes were glowing red, her head was ten times its normal size, and if it were in any way possible to look any angrier, she would have.******

**_"ARE NOT!!!"_ **

Eclipse's teeth were a jagged line as well, and her eyes were glowing an evil icy blue color. 

Hiei and Yusuke had watched this whole scene with about 200 sweatdrops each, completely clueless expressions on their faces. Kinda like a mixture between ._. and O_O. Their mouths were so tiny and so far down it was almost like they didn't even have mouths. The two boys exchanged puzzled looks.

"CHILDREN! Could we go?" Hiei interrupted. Eclipse and Shadow looked at him, their jagged teeth vanishing, their eyes going from glowing red and blue to normal, innocent red and blue, and little halos appearing over their heads. They saluted, looking almost chibi.

"Yes sir!"

"Yes ma'am!"

"MA'AM?!" Hiei screamed, throwing a rock at Eclipse's head.

"Sorry sir!" she apologized, bowing repeatedly.

"You better be."

"Ma'am," Eclipse muttered under her breath. Hiei punched her in the head. She fell face first onto a pile of tiny rocks that had somehow gathered there. Instantly, a small lizard ran out of a hole in the ground, shaking its fist.

"Baka ningen! You wrecked my insect house! It's not cheap to build one of those, you know!" it yelled in an extremely high-pitched voice. Tons of small insects were now running away from the pile of rocks. Eclipse, Hiei, Shadow, and Yusuke watched it curiously with odd looks (._. O_O and -_-) and sweatdrops. Mai was still asleep.

"... Is an insect house anything similar to a dog house or a chicken house?" Shadow asked, leaning over towards Hiei, her eyes still glued on the lizard, who was wildly darting around, catching the insects.

"I dunno. Maybe," Hiei answered. "I wasn't aware that lizards could talk, were you?"

"Nope."

"I didn't know they made insect houses either, did you?"

"Nope."

"Odd."

"Yup."

"Very odd."

"Uh-huh."

"Maybe we should help it or something."

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Eclipse should. We didn't do anything."

"Oh. True."

"I'M NOT HELPING SOME STUPID LIZARD! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO KNOCKED ME ON MY FACE, HIEI!" Eclipse yelled.

"STUPID LIZARD, AM I?!" the tiny creature yelled. "JUST BECAUSE I'M LITTLE MAKES ME STUPID?! WELL YOU HUMANS ARE QUITE FULL OF YOURSELVES, ARE YOU NOT?!"

"I'm not," Eclipse retorted.

"YEAH, WELL WHAT'S THE SQUARE ROOT OF 16 TO THE POWER OF X WHEN X IS EQUAL TO THE SQUARE ROOT OF 4?" the lizard yelled.

Eclipse's face fell. She looked completely clueless. "Uhhh..."

"Sixteen," Hiei replied. Everybody stared. The lizard ran up Hiei's leg, chest, and onto his shoulder.

"You've got a brain in your head, sir, that you do," the lizard said. "How did you figure that out?"

"The square root of four is two and the square root of sixteen squared is itself. It's really quite simple, if you aren't an idiot," Hiei said, wondering if somebody had slipped him some drugs. How often is it you explain to a lizard how you solved a math problem? And it actually listens? And understands you? How often is it a lizard gives you a math problem to solve and explain to it?!

"I like you. You're cool," it said, scurrying around to Hiei's other shoulder.

"Uh... Thank you? Um... Would you mind telling me how it is that you can talk?" Hiei said.

"Talk? All lizards can talk. Very few lizards can talk so that human people understand them. And even if they can, most don't, because it is looked down upon by other lizards, and all the lizards around here can't stand to not fit in," the lizard answered. Hiei still looked slightly confused.

"Oh... Then why aren't you like that?"

"Because I like being strange!"

"Sounds a bit like you, Shadow," Hiei said, looking up from the lizard.

"Yeah, I know. I never thought I'd meet a lizard who thought like me..."

"Was that a sarcastic comment? I think it was!" the lizard said, jumping from Hiei's shoulder to Shadow's, then scurrying up to sit on top of her head.

"It wasn't. I just mean that I never thought I'd meet a lizard who could think like me, because until now I never thought lizards were very intelligent, no offense," Shadow replied.

"Ooh. Okay. I apologize..." The lizard looked around at the group. "The human body is so interesting. Every one is different..."

"Right. But we're not quite human," Yusuke said.

"What?"

"We're demons. Well, technically, I'm the only pure demon, unless you count that little girl over there," Hiei said, waving his hand in the general direction of Mai. "Shadow, Eclipse, and Yusuke are half breed demons."

"Interesting. Demons, huh? Well, I never thought I'd meet any, pure or not," the lizard said. "I guess we haven't had an official introduction, though.. I'm Kei. What are your names?"

"Shadow."

"Eclipse."

"Hiei."

"Y... Yusuke?" Yusuke was still in shock from seeing Hiei with a talking lizard on his shoulder. And Shadow with the lizard sitting on her head. A polite, _intelligent talking lizard._

"Who's the little one over there?" Kei asked.

"Mai."

"Why isn't she awake?"

"She's lazy," Hiei replied.

"Hiei, why are you suddenly being such a loser towards her?" Yusuke asked.

"I had an epiphany."

"A who?"

"Nothing. You'll have one soon enough, too, I'm sure," Hiei said dully.

"Huh!" Kei muttered. He hopped back to Hiei's shoulder. "So what brings you to this place?"

"We're searching for our friend," Hiei replied. "Don't suppose you've seen him?"

"I doubt it. Wait. No. Maybe I have. You're the second group of people to pass through here over the past month or so. What's your friend look like?"

"I doubt you've seen him if the last group came through a month ago... But... He's tall, with long red hair and green eyes. He was wearing white when we last saw him," Hiei said.

"White? Green? Red? Nope. Not him. The guy I saw had long black hair, and he wore black. He had really pale skin, like somebody who spent no time outside in the sun. He also had part of his face covered with a mask or something..." Kei said. "He was really freaky looking."

"Is it just me... Or did that description sound a lot like Karasu?" Hiei asked nervously, looking at his friends for backup.

"Karasu? Hm. That name sounds familiar," Kei said thoughtfully.

"Really?! Uh-oh. If Karasu's around here... Kurama is like... In a lot of danger," Shadow said.

"No, really?" Hiei replied sarcastically.

"Yes, really! That guy is like... gay or something!"

"Oh shut up. Let's go... Uh. Kei? We gotta go," Hiei said.

"No biggie."

"Um... Why are you still sitting on my shoulder then?"

"I'm coming with you."

"Okay... Then... In that case, let's go..."

"Onward!" Shadow cried. She stuffed a few pieces of jerky in her mouth and trotted down the path with Eclipse trailing behind her whining about food and hungry and all that stuff.

Hiei and the girls were a good way up the path before they realized Yusuke was still behind them attempting to wake up Mai. When she made no sign of waking up, he picked her up and hurried to catch up with his friend.

~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If I wrote a Hiei/Shadow romance, how many of you people would read it? How many would actually want me to write one? If half the reviewers would read it, then I'll post one (After at least 15 reviews, if half the people want me to post one, I'll write and post one.) Cuz somebody suggested I do that, back around story #2, and I just recently finished "Separation Situation," so I only have two stories rather than three that I'm working on. Anyway, PLEASE answer this in a review: Do you want me to write a Hiei/Shadow romance?


	5. Everything is Going Wrong, Oh Pity Us

This chapter isn't nearly as strange as the last one... They don't meet any more talking lizards... The talking lizard they did meet is only a small part of this chapter, but I get around to everybody in this chapter, so it's quite eventful... I think. Kinda long... Oh well, have fun.

=========================================================================

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Everything is Going Wrong, Oh Pity Us.

Kurama paced the room he was imprisoned in. Karasu was gone, for the time being. Thank God. Now that he was alone, Kurama had managed to calm down a bit, and was working on an escape plan. That damned Karasu had picked through his hair and stolen all his seeds, so he had no weapons besides his own fists. Just the thought of this brought a string of curses from the redhead.

"That guy has got some nerve... He should be shot. About six times. Yeah..." Kurama amused himself with violent revenge plans. Then he mentally slapped himself and went back to his escape plans. After he'd figured out escape, _then_ he'd worry about revenge. And yes, there would be revenge. 

Muwahahahaaa... Sweet, sweet revenge. Sigh... *mental slap* ESCAPE! SWEET, SWEET _ESCAPE_, GOD DAMN YOU, GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT! Ah. Right. Sorry 'bout that!

Ignore that. That was slightly abnormal. Just talking to myself.

Kurama heard the click of shoes on concrete outside his door. His escape plans had gotten this far: Find a way out of the room.

The door slid open.

"Kurama?"

_WHACK!_

That, my friends, is called being _impulsive. _

Karasu wheeled from the punch. Kurama waited for the man to hit the ground before stepping over Karasu's unconscious form and into the hallway. Since there was only one direction for him to go, Kurama took off as fast as he could. After about 25 feet, the hall split. Once again, Kurama acted on impulse and took off down the left hall without any great reason.

_'Woo! So far so good. And I didn't even plan this! Maybe acting on impulse sometimes isn't so bad after all,'_ Kurama thought. Just as this thought formed in his head, four demons stepped out of a side door into the hallway in front of him. He stopped so fast he nearly fell over.

"Hey... Aren't you Karasu-sama's prisoner?" one of the demons said, squinting down at Kurama.

"Karasu-_sama_? Never heard of him. Now, I believe I actually intended on going this way," Kurama said, pointing over his shoulder, "so I'll just be going now. Nice talking and all... Bye!" He spun and ran down the hall.

"Yes you are, boy! I helped him bring you in!" the demon yelled, following Kurama down the hall.

_'Damned impulsive behavior! Impulse sucks! I'm not like Kuwabara! I don't live off pure luck! I actually use my BRAIN to survive!'_ Kurama thought desperately, trying not to look over his shoulder as the four demons thundered down the hall behind him.

"Come back here, prisoner!"

"In your #*&^ing dreams, baka!" Kurama yelled over his shoulder. 

"What did you say?! You'll be sorry!"

"I'm sure I can't get much more sorry than I already am!"

"What?!"

"Never mind! Don't decay your brain by trying to figure out my highly intelligent way of speaking!"

"Okay! Thank you! Now we don't have to worry about what you say, and we can focus all our energy into catching up with you!"

"DAMN!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"She's _still_ asleep?" Hiei asked, glancing over his shoulder at Yusuke. The boy was still hauling Mai around like it would be a sin to wake her up and make her walk.

"Shhh! Yeah, don't wake her up. She needs her r---"

"MAI YOUJO, YOU LOUSY LITTLE GIRL, YOU'D BEST WAKE UP NOW, OR I'M GONNA THROW YOU OVER THAT CLIFF RIGHT THERE AND HOPE I NEVER SEE YOUR LEECHING LITTLE FACE AGAIN!" Hiei screamed, cutting Yusuke off mid-sentence. The girl was instantly awake, bawling her eyes out.

"Hiei Jaganshi, you ass!" Yusuke snapped.

"Hiei, I can't help but wonder, why are you like that to her?" Kei (the talking lizard, remember...) asked.

"Cuz she needs it."

Meanwhile, Shadow has suddenly realized something, though it took her about two hours. She spun around with her eyes narrowed.

"WAIT A SECOND!"

Everybody froze and stared at her.

"Isn't Karasu dead?" she asked. Everybody relaxed.

"Yes, but resurrection and reincarnation are possibilities, you know that, Shadow," Hiei said. "Get yourself a brain, duh."

"Ah. Okay! Thank you for clearing that up. Let's go, all right?"

"Shadow, you need a life, are you aware of that?" Eclipse asked.

"Yes, quite. Got a problem with it?"

"Uh... I dunno."

"Okee day. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to continue with my wonderful fantasies of what I am going to do to the crybaby girl back there... Hm... Ice pick up the nose...? Yech! Shudder! Gross, no way. Hnnn... Quick-dry wet cement? Heh... That's better than an ice pick up the nose..." Shadow continued with her rambling while Eclipse got continually farther and farther away from her, looking scared out of her mind.

"Hiei, Shadow is scaring me," she said, eventually backing clear up to where Hiei was.

"She scares us all. Don't feel left out."

"Eh-heh..." Eclipse laughed nervously. ^_^;;

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kuwabara sat in his room staring out the window. He was trying to remember something that had happened a couple days ago. But he couldn't remember. It had something to do with... somebody. Oh yeah! Hiei! He'd gotten so freaked when Yusuke had said...

What had Yusuke said?

Well, it had been about Yukina. Kuwabara thought back to the many, many times Hiei had gotten pale and nervous-looking at the tiniest mention of Yukina's name.

_What's up with that, anyway? Why does he do that? Hiei can't have any feelings for her, can he? He's that stupid 'cold, heartless' type. He can't have any connections with such a wonderful girl!_

Kuwabara thought back to all the times Botan had slipped up and almost said something about Yukina and Hiei.

And Yusuke...

And even _Kurama_ had teased Hiei...

"Oh, that's it! That shrimp is going to tell me what is going on here, or I'm gonna kick his ass into next week!" Kuwabara exclaimed, jumping up and pulling on his jacket. He walked outside, putting on his shoes as he went, and headed down the street towards Shadow and Hiei's house.

He was quite clueless to the fact that everybody but him had gone looking for Kurama.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Come back here, prisoner! You are Karasu-sama's prisoner, and you are not to leave your cell without his explicit permission!"

Kurama had been running down an endless maze of hallways for at least half an hour. He was sure Karasu had come to his senses by now. One punch in the face can't knock a guy like that out for half an hour. It was just a matter of time before---

"Hold it."

Karasu suddenly appeared in front of Kurama, facing away from him. The boy skidded to a stop, nearly running into the demon in front of him. The four behind Kurama stopped and went down on one knee so fast it was almost funny.

"Karasu-sama," they said in unison, almost like he was their God. Yeah, worship the friggin' gay man... 

"Kurama," Karasu said, turning around. Kurama arched one eyebrow. The man had a black eye. It would have been funny under different circumstances, but right now, Kurama had more sense than to laugh at him. But in this situation, all it meant was that Kurama had just lost any chance of escape for about... the next ten years, unless somebody showed up and rescued him.

"Heh heh..." Kurama sweatdropped and smiled nervously, looking around for any possible way out. Karasu grabbed his arm. He felt a strange tingle where the demon's hand touched his skin.

"Some of my energy is now inside you. Try anything else, and you'll lose an appendage or three," Karasu threatened. Kurama's legs turned into jelly (not literally, though that would be an amusing thing to see, wouldn't it?).

"Damn you," he muttered. "Can't you just let me go?"

"_After what you just did you expect me to just **let you GO**?! YOU'RE DELUSIONAL!" Karasu shouted. "I'm tempted to just kill you right here and now!"_

"Oh, God, don't do that. Yeah, it might spare me the misery of putting up with _you!" Kurama retorted sarcastically._

"Shut up!"

"You can't make me!"

"You wanna see me try?"

"Not particularly."

"Damn."

Kurama snorted.

"Look, can you just get on with whatever you're going to do so I can wallow in self-pity in private?" he asked. This time it was Karasu's turn to snort.

"Yeah right. Wallow in self-pity? That doesn't sound like you, Kurama."

"Yeah, well in situations like these, I'm quite out of character."

"Oh. Boo-hoo. Well, I'm still quite pissed about the black eye. I can't... quite... see out of it... It's... swollen shut. Damn," Karasu muttered, desperately trying to open the eye wider.

"Yeah, that's just great. Can I leave now?"

"NO! SHUT UP AND STOP ASKING, BOY!" Karasu screamed.

"You know, jabbing at the eye like that isn't going to make it any better. If anything, it's going to make it worse."

"Shut up! What do you know?"

"Obviously a hell of a lot more than you do."

"Shut up! Guards! Take this insolent piece of crud back to his cell!" Karasu ordered.

"It's about #^&*ing time!" Kurama cried triumphantly. The guards who had chased him through countless hallways quickly bowed to Karasu (Yes, Karasu who was still trying to pry his swollen-shut eye back open). One of them grabbed Kurama and threw him over his shoulder, running down the hallway with him.

"Hey, this is NOT my preferred method of travel!" Kurama shouted.

"Shut up, you insolent piece of crud!"

"Monkey see, monkey do, is that how it is? Actually... 'Monkey hear, monkey say' is more like it..."

"What?"

"Oh, never mind. You wouldn't get it anyway. You probably don't even know what a monkey is... Come to think of it... You kinda look like a monkey..." Kurama muttered, more to himself than to the demon guard.

"We're here," the guard said, stopping and letting Kurama slide off his shoulder. The boy landed on his feet. No sooner had he landed then the guard shoved him through the door into the room he had been in for the past two or three days. Kurama went off balance and fell over. The guards laughed.

"Good luck, little man," one said, slamming the door.

"Owies..." Kurama whimpered, standing up and rubbing his back where he'd hit the floor. "Damn stupid impulsive behavior. You got me into this, you know..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"WOOOOHOOO!!!" Shadow screamed. They had finally reached the top of the cliff. Before them stretched a forest. "This is cool, we're finally at the top! Oh yeah, in your face, suckers!"

"Shadow? You're scaring us again," Eclipse warned. Shadow was doing the moonwalk and various other dances at the top of the cliff.

"Good. Now we can finally get around to looking for Kurama..." Hiei muttered as he pulled himself over the ledge and onto the top of the cliff. He stopped dead and stared at Shadow.

"God, that girl's got some problems," Kei muttered, also staring.

"No, ya think?" Hiei asked.

"HEY, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, YOU DOLTS?! GET A MOVE ON!" Yusuke screamed from beneath them. Hiei glared down at the baka.

"Dolts? First, 'dolts' is plural. I am one person. Second, I suggest you shut up, before I am forced to throw a brick at your head."

"A brick? Yeah, and where are you gonna get one of those?"

"Right here!" Hiei grabbed a rock that was roughly the same size and shape of a brick, but weighed about 20 pounds more, and dropped it on Yusuke's head.

"Damn! That hurt! Baka youkai... Ow... I hate you sometimes, Hiei, I really do," Yusuke muttered, lapsing into a state of oblivion where all he could do was mutter random curses under his breath.

"Thank you; I work hard at it," Hiei said, smiling innocently. Shadow had stopped her dancing and was now having a feast of jerky and water (Woo, fancy).

"Okay, children, we're not wasting any time! Let's go!" Hiei said. Shadow raised one eyebrow _slowly_, her eyes _slowly getting ten times their normal size, and then _slowly_ her other eyebrow followed the first one's example and arched up as well. __Slowly, Shadow's mouth fell open and the piece of jerky that had been hanging out _slowly_ fell to the ground. _

Slowly.

"Well? What are we waiting for?" Hiei asked.

Eclipse _slowly_ fell over, dying of heat exhaustion since they had been out in bright sunlight since about 9 o'clock that morning, and it was now 6 PM.

"Hiei Jaganshi," Shadow said _slowly_, giving each word time to sink in. "It is going to be _dark soon. Now, does it not make sense to get a good sleep in before we go mangling out our brains, searching for clues and trails?"_

"Hm... Yes, I do suppose that makes sense. Good girl, always keeping a head on your shoulders!" Kei replied in a very good imitation of a British accent.

"Shutup, lizard!" Hiei retorted. "Yes, Shadow, I suppose that's smarter than just rushing off and getting Yusuke and Mai lost in the forest because they're clueless dolts, though that would be nice if we managed to get rid of them..."

"I HEARD THAT!" Yusuke shouted.

"Boo hoo. Okay everyone! Set up camp!" Hiei shouted.

"Woooo hooo!" Shadow shouted, suddenly going into _slow[ly] motion mode. She turned around __slowly and _slowly_ ran towards the forest. Picking a nice spot under a tree, she __slowly swung her pack off her shoulder and dropped it to the ground. it fell ever-so-_slowly_ and hit with a dull 'fump' noise. With that, Shadow settled herself under the tree and _slowly_ fell asleep._

Hiei was the first one to break the sweatdrop-flooded silence of people staring at the girl.

"Well, that was... strange..." he muttered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kuwabara pounded on the door of Shadow's house.

"HIEI JAGANSHI YOU'D BEST GET YOUR LIL' HINEY OUT HERE BEFORE I COME IN THERE! I GOT SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU, YOU LIL' SHRIMP! YOU BETTER ANSWER THEM, TOO, BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T, I'M GOING TO MANGLE YOUR PUNY LITTLE BRAIN! HEY, CAN YOU HEAR ME!?"

"Kuwabara, what are you doing? Nobody's home. Isn't that obvious?" somebody said from behind the human. He spun around and came face to face with a blue-haired girl in a pink kimono.

"Botan!" he said happily.

"Bingo!" she said cheerfully.

"Maybe you can help me!" Kuwabara said hopefully.

"It depends on what you need help with."

"Where's Hiei?"

"Hm... He's about... oh... Way over there somewhere." Botan gestured widely to include just about the entire country. Kuwabara narrowed his eyes.

"Botan, I'm serious. I need to talk to that little punk."

"What about? He's on quite an important mission right now, looking for his best friend," Botan replied.

"What? Well, I need to ask him something. Have you ever noticed how he gets all pale and nervous-looking whenever anybody mentions Yukina?" Kuwabara asked. Botan sweatdropped.

"No, Kuwabara, I never noticed that." ^_^;

"Well he does. I think he's got some connection to her, or he loves her or something, because why else would he be like that?"

"I don't know, Kuwabara." ^_^;;

"Do you have any idea why he might be like that?"

"No, Kuwabara." ^_^;;;

"Well, I think he secretly has a crush on her, which is definitely not good for my sweet Yukina, because he's an evil, bad influence on anybody he's around for too long, and how dare he try to pollute the sweet innocence of my dear sweet Yukina?" Kuwabara asked. 

"Kuwabara! Hiei wouldn't do any such thing to his sister! Oops." O_O;;;;

"**_SISTER_?! HIEI'S **_SISTER?!_** THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL THAT YUKINA IS HIEI'S SISTER! NO WAY! SHE'S AN ICE APPARITION! SHE'S SWEET AND INNOCENT AND SHE'S BEAUTIFUL AND INNOCENT! I said that twice. AND HIEI IS A FIRE DEMON! HE'S MOST DEFINITELY NOT SWEET OR INNOCENT OR BEAUTIFUL OR INNOCENT, WHICH I ONCE AGAIN SAID TWICE! HE'S EVIL! EVIL AND CRUEL AND MURDEROUS AND EVIL! I said that one again twice too. Wait. That made no sense. And I actually said it three times. BUT THERE IS NO WAY THAT HIEI AND YUKINA ARE IN ANY WAY RELATED! I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT!" Kuwabara screamed.**

"Oh, good. Then I'm safe," Botan sighed. "Just don't bring this up around Hiei, or he'll have my head on a stick right over there by Shadow's garden." Botan pointed to a rather violent-looking flower garden, with all sorts of snapping, drooling, bloodthirsty plants.

"Oh wait. That's Youko's garden. Heh. Woo, I'm staying clear from this place for about four thousand years..." Botan muttered. She looked around and spotted a rather friendly looking garden, complete with marigolds and sunflowers and pretty, pretty roses.

"That one must be Sha-- Never mind."

Just as she started to say that, a butterfly flew over one of the plants and promptly got eaten. By the plants.

"I guess Shadow hasn't got a flower garden. If she did, it most certainly would not eat butterflies. Anyway, Kuwabara, the point is, don't say anything about Yukina to Hiei, especially about my little slip-up, or he will scalp us, behead us, and feed our corpses to the butterfly-eating flower gardens. Get the point?" Botan asked.

"Yeah," Kuwabara said, looking at the flower gardens nervously.

"Good, I'm glad. Now, I suggest you go on home. Hiei and Shadow won't be home for a few more days, maybe not even a week. Bye!"

"Right." Kuwabara headed down the street towards his own house, muttering about Yukina and Hiei being related, but not forgetting to make an extra large detour around the evil bloodthirsty flower gardens of doom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kurama made a point of sitting directly across the room from the door, so that if Karasu opened the little slide-open window before he came into the room, he would know Kurama wasn't going to attempt to inflict any more 'deadly' injuries (oh yeah, black eye... Real deadly), and he wouldn't accidentally[-on-purpose] blow off Kurama's arm or leg and claim it as self-defense.

Kurama had given great thought to his newest escape plan. He'd finally come up with 'Survive as long as you can and hope Hiei shows up soon enough to keep you from killing or being killed.'

He was quite pleased with this new, unimplusive plan. He was sure it would work much better than Plan B. 'Punch Karasu in the face when he open the door again and get an appendage or three blown off two seconds later.'

Or Plan C. 'Beg and plead with Karasu to let you go, and when he eventually suggests something disgusting, gay, and/or perverted, punch him in the face and get your appendages blown off two seconds later.'

Both Plan B and Plan C were guaranteed to produce... ahem... less-than-desirable results. 

Suddenly, a thought struck Kurama. 

_'Youko!'_ he thought, snapping his fingers. _'Yeah. I could transform, and since Karasu's energy isn't in Youko's body (is it?)... then he shouldn't be able to blow off any arms or legs, right?'_

Kurama liked his newest plan better and made it Plan A, bumping everything else down a notch. He decided that when Karasu came, in he would wait for him to try something, anything, violent or perverted, before transforming and kicking the sorry loser's butt. For some reason, Karasu didn't show up for a long time.

Kurama hadn't slept at all since he'd been kidnapped... or whatever Karasu wanted to call it. That had been at least three days. At _least. Maybe more. Having no windows, no clock, and no other way to tell time, he had no clue how long he'd been there._

[I have no clue either.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kuwabara was paying so little attention to where he was going, still trying to figure out how Yukina could be Hiei's sister, that he ran straight into Yukina. (What a coincidence, don't you think?) They both fell flat over. Kuwabara was about to yell at whomever he had just run into until he realized who it was.

"YUKINA BABY I'M SO SORRY!!!" he screamed, helping her to her feet. "Are you all right?"

"I think so," she said, dusting herself off.

Kuwabara examined her closely. She was oblivious to this, as she was still dusting herself off (I guess she got a lot of dust on her?).

"I am now ten times more positive that there is no way Hiei is your brother," Kuwabara muttered.

"Kazuma? Who said anything about Hiei being my brother?" Yukina asked.

"Botan did, but she's got to be wrong. The only thing you have in common with Hiei is that both of you have red eyes, but your eyes are a much more beautiful shade of red than _his_," Kuwabara said.

"Hiei... I always felt that there was something about him... Why would Botan lie about something like that?"

"I don't know, but she must have been, because there's no way... Except it is true that Hiei always acts kinda strange when you're around... And whenever anybody mentions your name to him, he gets this look... And everybody always teases him about... something... They never let me in on it, though... Come to think of it, maybe he _is_ your brother! THAT'S HORRIBLE!" Kuwabara said, looking terrified. "NO WONDER HIEI ALWAYS SEEMED SO MAD WHEN I SAID ANYTHING ABOUT YOU! HOW CAN HIEI BE YOUR BROTHER?! THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE! YOU'RE TOO INNOCENT AND SWEET! HE'S EVIL AND MURDEROUS AND I THINK HE'S THE EVILEST GOOD GUY I KNOW! But... Hiei can't really care about you, can he? He's probably ashamed to have an ice apparition as a sister... An innocent little girl like you. But then again... he _did save you at the Dark Tournament..."_

"Having a bit of a brain overload, little brother?"

Kuwabara spun around. Shizuru was standing behind him with a smirk on her face.

"Oh, hey sis! Did you know that Hiei is Yukina's long-lost older twin brother?"

"Yes. But it's impossible for somebody to have an older twin."

"What? Oh."

"Anyway, yes, I've known about Yukina's brother ever since... hm. Ever since she got kidnapped by that loser and you all had to go rescue her. You're just a wee bit behind on the news there," Shizuru informed him.

"So it's true?! He really is!?"

"Yup. I heard it from Koenma's own mouth."

"Wow. This is so not cool..."

==========================================================================

Nooo! Hiei's secret is out. Kuwabara knows! AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Sorry, this chapter was a bit long, don't you think? I was sick for 2 days and couldn't get on the computer, so when I finally got on the computer yesterday... I wrote a lot. Yeah. I was writing from like... midnight until 3:00 AM. No I am not insane, I'm on Thanksgiving break! I was sick on Thanksgiving. That sucked.

Oh, and the verdict on the Hiei/Shadow romance is No. There was nobody seeming overly enthusiastic about me writing it. There was nobody begging me to write one, but the people who said not to were practically begging ("No H/S PLEASE!"), so I'm gonna save myself a bit of my poor brain... I've got three other stories I'm working on as it is... Bye!

_~SJ_


	6. Escape!

**CHAPTER SIX**

Escape!

_(For real this time!)_

Before he knew it, Kurama had fallen asleep. He hadn't intended to, nor had he wanted to, but he did. Two hours later, Karasu showed up. He opened the little sliding window on the door and saw his 'prisoner' was sleeping.

_'How cute,'_ he thought. He opened the door.

"Kurama, wake up," he said, kneeling beside him and shaking him slightly. The boy woke up, but he kept his eyes closed, still half-asleep and oblivious.

"Get up," Karasu instructed.

"I don't... want... to..." Kurama's mind slowly kicked into gear and started working properly, and his eyes snapped open. He looked up at Karasu.

"Back off!" he said, shooing Karasu away with one hand while he pushed himself up into a sitting position.

"Come with me," Karasu said, standing up and walking back to the door.

"What? Why?"

"We're going to take a little walk."

"**No. We're not."**

"Yeah we are. Come on."

"Where to?"

"A higher security room."

"Why?"

"Because you almost escaped once, I can't risk it again."

"The room had nothing to do with that, Karasu. That was your fault."

"Shut up! Nothing's ever my fault, so I'm blaming the room. Come with me."

"No offense, but that's just really pathetic," Kurama muttered, standing up. "I'm not leaving this room, Karasu. Not unless I'm leaving this building and never going to see you again."

"You're coming with me! Don't make me hurt you."

"Ha! That's a laugh. You'd hurt me? Ha ha ha."

"Kurama, I'm warning you..."

"That's a laugh too." Kurama knew he was just digging his own grave, deeper with every rude comment he made.

"That's it. Come on," Karasu snapped, grabbing Kurama's arm.

"Damn."

Karasu pulled Kurama out the door and into the hallway.

"But it wasn't the room's fault! It was your fault! Why must you go switching rooms on me?" Kurama asked. This could screw up his plans, big time. The tiniest thing...

"Shut up! I want you in a different room, and if you don't shut up about it, you'll be bound, gagged, and dragged to the room by that pretty red hair of yours!" Karasu snapped. Kurama shut his mouth.

If it weren't for the fact that Karasu had a hold of his arm, and that he already had put some of his energy into him, Kurama would have run. But he needed something else. Something that would severely maul Karasu and knock him unconscious.

They rounded a corner and Karasu slammed straight into something, falling over and dragging Kurama down with him.

The boy looked up. Standing there, looking startled, was a guy wearing a bright colored button-up shirt that looked like it belonged in Hawaii, carrying a surfboard. Apparently, he had accidentally hit Karasu as they came around the corner.

"Random surfer dude?" Kurama said, surprised.

"What? Oh, hey, dude! Never thought I'd see _you_ here!" the man said.

**_Note: __They met the random surfer dude in 'Separation Situation'. I've kinda decided to make him a reoccurring character... He's just some guy in a bright colored shirt that walks around carrying a surfboard, and he's always got some point in the story, and it's usually important. But he doesn't even have a name! He's just the random surfer dude. Nameless random surfer dude._**

"Yeah, same goes for me," Kurama muttered, staring at Karasu. He was out cold on the floor. Sudden realization rushed over the boy. "Surfer dude, you just saved my life! If I don't blow this..."

"I saved your life? Dude, that is like, totally tubular!" the guy said.

"Yeah, really. Um... I gotta go," Kurama said, standing up. "Thanks a million. See you later..." The boy took off down the hall.

Hiei jumped out of the tree he'd been sleeping in. He jabbed Shadow in the ribs. "Hey! Get up, you lazy bag of---"

"I SWEAR TO GOD I DIDN'T KILL HIM!" Shadow screamed, sitting up so fast she slammed her head into Hiei's, knocking him over backwards.

"KILL WHO?!" Eclipse asked, sitting up just as fast as Shadow had. "IT WASN'T ME!!!"

"Guilty conscience?" Hiei asked. "Well, I can understand Shadow. She's the one who feeds people to weasels... But who has Eclipse killed to make her have such a guilty conscience?"

"It comes from being friends with Shadow," Eclipse said, knowing that excuse would work.

"Come on, you can tell us who you killed! I'll be proud of you, you know that!" Shadow said. Eclipse looked at her friend innocently.

"I didn't kill anyone!"

Shadow got a horrified look on her face. "YOU KILLED THE PILLSBURY DOUGH BOY!?! YOU EVIL, EVIL CREATURE!!! HIEI!!! ECLIPSE KILLED THE PILLSBURY DOUGH BOY, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!"

"Um... No comment?" Hiei said.

"YOU! YOU HELPED HER, I BET!!!"

"I DID NOT! THAT THING ISN'T EVEN A REAL PERSON! IT'S A BLOB OF DOUGH WITH A FACE! WHY DO YOU THINK IT'S CALLED THE _DOUGH BOY_?! IT'S NOT WORTH MY TIME TO KILL A BLOB OF DOUGH!" Hiei retorted.

"HOW DARE YOU? ECLIPSE KILLED IT, IT HAS TO BE REAL!"

"I didn't... um... kill anything. You're delusional," Eclipse said nervously.

"Well then who killed it?" Shadow asked.

"Nobody. As far as I know, nothing has happened to the Pillsbury dough boy," Eclipse said.

"IT'S IMMORTAL?! OH MY GOD! IT'S AN IMMORTAL BLOB OF DOUGH! _WITH A **FACE**!!! IT CAN'T GET MUCH WORSE THAN THAT!!!" Shadow screamed. "WE'RE DOOMED!!!"_

"What is she talking about?" Kei asked, suddenly on Hiei's shoulder.

"Never mind. She's having some problems with mental stability," Hiei replied.

"Oh. Well it's rather disturbing," the lizard replied. Shadow screamed, pointing at Kei.

"HOLY GOD! IT'S A TALKING LIZARD! WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? LIZARDS CAN TALK!? SINCE WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?!" 

"Shadow, I've been with you since yesterday. Or was it even the day before?" Kei said.

"Just yesterday."

"OH, HOLY GOD! THERE'S BEEN A TALKING LIZARD RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE FOR TWO DAYS AND I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT!!!"

"One day," Eclipse corrected.

"Shut up, child. Don't change the subject on me," Shadow snapped.

"I wasn't! I was correcting you."

"Well don't do that, either! Just don't talk to me and we'll both be happy!" 

"Hey! Bitch!"

"YOU! YOU DARE TO CALL ME A BITCH!? IF ANYONE, _YOU_ ARE A BITCH!!!"

"HEY! WATCH THE LANGUAGE, WOULD YOU?!" Hiei screamed.

"NO! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"

"WANNA BET?"

"YES!"

"Too bad. I don't gamble," Hiei said. Shadow exploded.

"YES YOU DO, YOU LYING PIECE OF CRAP! WHAT DO YOU CALL THAT TIME WE WERE PLAYING POKER? OR SHOULD I SAY _TIMES_? WITH AN _'S'_!!! YOU BET!!! THAT'S GAMBLING!!! SO YOU ARE A LOUSY LYING PIECE OF S---"

"SO WHAT IF I BET? I DIDN'T GAMBLE! THE DEFINITION OF GAMBLE IS WHEN THERE'S MORE THAN ONE POSSIBILITY FOR THE OUTCOME! THOSE GAMES WERE JUST 'PUT SOME MONEY ON THE TABLE AND WATCH YOUKO KURAMA TAKE IT WHEN HE WINS' GAMES!!!"

"WE DON'T GO BY THAT DEFINITION OF GAMBLE! WHEN YOU BET ON A GAME, THAT'S GAMBLING! SO GET A LIFE!"

"I HAVE A LIFE, AND IT'S NOT GOING ANYWHERE ANYTIME SOON!"

"ASSHOLE!" Shadow screamed.

"AM NOT!"

"ARE TOO!"

"AM NOT!"

"ARE TOO!"

"AM-- You know, I can't believe I'm actually doing this. I'll stop now," Hiei said. "We have to find Kurama."

"Kurama... You mean that guy with the red hair and green eyes?" Shadow asked. "About six feet tall, real smart, quiet fellow... About sixteen years old... Cute guy with a sexy alter ego?"

Hiei sweatdropped. "Well, if that's how you think of him... I thought you hated Youko?"

"Yes, but I can't get past the fact that he's sexy," Shadow muttered. Hiei sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Whatever."

"I think I'm going to die! I can't believe I just said that! Oh... I'm gonna cry now," Shadow said, dropping to the ground and curling up with her hands over her head. "What happened to my pure, beautiful, NORMAL mind? Youko is not sexy! He's a perverted asshole!"

Hiei and Eclipse sweatdropped. Yusuke, somehow, slept through this all. As usual. Somehow he manages to sleep through everything and anything.

"Shadow... We know Youko is a lousy piece of crap, but could we get going? We have to find Kurama," Hiei said. Shadow's eyes bulged at the mention of Kurama's name.

"Kurama! He's the one who transforms into Youko! Why should I want to find him?!"

"He's your friend! He can keep Youko under control, don't worry. He's not going to show up and harass you," Hiei said. _'At least, we hope not.'_

"He better not! I'll kill something!"

"The Pillsbury dough boy?" Eclipse suggested.

"NO! Don't hurt the blob of dough! What'd he ever do to you!?" Shadow asked.

"... Nothing, but--"

"SO WHY WOULD YOU KILL HIM?!"

"What'd all those door-to-door salesmen ever do to you to make you want to kill _them!?" Eclipse asked. "Feeding people to weasels!"_

"They came to my door! They invaded my privacy! They tried to waste my precious time and money on bull crap! I bet half that stuff they sell doesn't even work! You can buy it in the store for about half the price! I saw on a TV show once that this lady tricked this guy into buying water buy telling him it was the best cleaner ever, and she was wearing some skimpy outfit and that's the only reason that pervert bought it! Pervert?! AH! YOUKO! Youko's a pervert."

"Shadow, let's go. Get a life," Hiei said.

"But what about Yusuke and Mai?" Kei asked.

"Oh. I forgot about them," Hiei muttered. He walked over and screamed something in Yusuke's ear, but he said it so fast that nobody understood it. The boy was up in a second with Mai over his shoulder, ready to go.

"Let's go!"

"Well that was interesting," Eclipse muttered. They headed into the forest.

Kurama ran. He ran as fast as he could through the seemingly endless maze of hallways. He had a feeling he was getting farther this time. He hadn't had to hide from any passing guards, and since Karasu was unconscious, he wasn't going to come and drag him back any time soon.

"YOU!" somebody yelled. "STOP!"

_'Damn. Just when I think I'm getting somewhere...'_ Kurama thought. He sped up and turned a corner.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" the voice behind him yelled again.

Suddenly, Kurama saw, through a window on a door, trees!

He slammed on his breaks to keep from going face-first into the door, grabbed the doorknob, and turned it. It was open. 

"YES!" He ripped the door open and ran outside, still hearing the yells from behind him.

"Find anything yet?" Shadow asked dryly.

"Nope," Eclipse replied.

Hiei had suggested they split up. He'd sent Mai off with Eclipse and Shadow, and he had stayed with Yusuke.

"Me neither. I wonder what happened to Mai?"

"I'm here!" Mai whined from behind them. They spun around. The little girl was nothing but mud from head to toe. Shadow burst out laughing.

"HA, LOOK AT YOU, YOU'RE COVERED IN MUD! WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO YOU?" she yelled.

"I fell. In the mud."

Shadow laughed even harder. Eclipse was standing there with her mouth shut, not sure whether or not to laugh maniacally or not. She finally gave in and laughed so hard she was in danger of asphyxiating (suffocating).

"Stop laughing at me! You're mean! I'm going to tell Yusuke-san about this!"

"Go ahead! He can't do anything to me! He already found that out the hard way," Shadow said. "Remember the bloody nose and black eye? It's already more or less completely normal now, but still, it was there."

"Have you now replaced Hiei with Yusuke?" Eclipse asked suddenly.

"Replaced?"

"Yeah. You were loving Hiei and everything, now you've got Yusuke. Hiei ditched you. Loser," Shadow said. Mai's eyes welled up with tears.

"I HATE YOU!" she screamed, running off in the general direction of 'away.'

"Whatever. Hate away..." Shadow shrugged. "Not like you're the first. Half the world hates me. In particular, Hiei's and Kurama's fan girls... They despise me. But do you see me caring? Nope."

"I'm supposing you're over your mental breakdown?" Eclipse asked hopefully.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine now."

"GOOD." Eclipse said, sounding truly relieved.

Kurama stopped and spun around to face his pursuers. A whole group, about five, had gathered on his tail.

"YOU CAN'T RUN FOREVER!" one yelled.

"No shit, Sherlock," Kurama retorted.

"GIVE IN NOW!!!"

"Shut up, idiot! He stopped!" another one snapped, hitting the yeller.

"Oh... I didn't see that."

"Obviously," Kurama muttered.

"So, you're ready to give up?" the smarter one asked.

"No. I'm ready to fight," Kurama replied.

"Fight?! Us? You must be kidding! We'll have you bound, gagged, and back to Karasu-sama before you even know what happened!"

"Yeah, well let's see it," Kurama snapped. He pulled his rose from his hair.

"Oooooh, a scary rose!" the stupider one said.

Kurama flicked the rose out into a whip and lashed out with it, cutting off the man's arm before he even realized it.

"Why don't you do something with your scary rose?"

"Uh... He already did, baka," the intelligent one informed him.

"What? OH MY GOD! MY ARM IS MISSING!" He passed out.

"One down, four to go," Kurama said.

"So glad you can count. Why don't you COUNT _THIS_!" the intelligent one yelled, charging.

"I can't believe this! Hiei is Yukina's brother... No way. This is impossible. I can't believe it."

Kuwabara had been ranting about it ever since he found out. Yukina had gotten sick of it and went home. Now he was sitting in his room talking to himself. A sudden thought passed through his mind.

"You know, Urameshi never came back from buying donuts. That's stupid. How can anyone take more than two days to buy some lousy donuts? Well! The great Kuwabara will have to venture forth to buy his _own donuts!"_

With that little thought, Kuwabara headed out the door.

Hiei's and Shadow's groups rejoined.

"Find anything?" Hiei asked.

"Nope."

"Damn. Well, we'd better keep looking. We've got to find something, eventually," Hiei muttered.

"Um... I think I just found something," Shadow said.

"Really? What?"

"Look over there," she said, pointing. On the other side of a nearby clearing, two people were fighting. One had long silvery hair, fox ears, and a fox tail, and the other one was rather a strange looking demon that somewhat resembled a monkey.

"Well, that's definitely a discovery," Hiei said. He led the way across the field to the fight.

"Oi, Kurama!" Yusuke yelled. The fox was distracted for a split second and looked at the group. His opponent got in one good punch and sent him flying.

"Oh, good move, Yusuke!" Shadow snapped.

"That had to hurt," Eclipse muttered.

"But I thought Kurama had red hair and green eyes?" Kei asked.

"He has two forms. This is his demon form," Hiei explained.

"His sexy demon form, according to Shadow," Eclipse reminded him. Shadow kicked her friend in the shin and sent her hopping away whining.

Youko lay where he had landed after being sent through two trees. With a groan, he sat up, just in time to see his opponent coming towards him. The kitsune jumped up and dodged the next hit. He'd been fighting with the group for at least half an hour. This one was the last one surviving.

All Kurama (either form) had gotten out of the fight was one small cut on his face and a rip in his shirt, and he had managed to kill four out of the five demons.

"Go Youko!" Shadow yelled.

"Shadow thinks you're sexy!" Yusuke shouted. Instantly, Shadow tackled the boy and started strangling him and beating his head off the ground. Nobody paid attention to this. Youko was so startled by what he'd heard, he barely managed to dodge the next attack, and he got another rip in his shirt. OH MY GOD! Nothing that a piece of thread and a needle won't solve...

Finally deciding he was getting sick of dodging, Youko easily slaughtered his opponent. He sauntered over to the group, where Shadow was still mangling Yusuke, and Mai was still missing. Nobody had noticed either of these yet, except Eclipse.

"Are you okay?" Hiei asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Where were you, and who was that demon you were fighting?"

"I was--"

"KURAMA!!!"

"Oh shit!" Youko spun around to see none other than Karasu.

"Karasu! I knew it!" Hiei said.

"How did _you_ know?" Karasu asked.

"I met a talking lizard. NO, I'm not insane." Hiei said the last part to Youko, who looked at his friend like he'd finally been around Shadow too long.

"Oh, so you met Kei?" Karasu said.

"What? How did you know his name?"

"He's my spy!"

"Oh, for God's sake, where is the world going when people use talking lizards as spies?" Hiei questioned, saying it to no one in particular. 

"He's a demon! He can morph into a lizard, much the same as Kurama here can become a fox," Karasu said. "Kei, transform to show them your humanoid form."

Kei jumped off Hiei's shoulder and transformed into a man of average height, with reptile-like black eyes and scales up his arms, shoulders, neck, and on his face.

"Oh, how very interesting," Hiei said dryly. "I hate when things have a twist like this..."

"You don't like twists, Hiei? Well you'll hate this! I'm not really Karasu!" Karasu paused, reaching up to the top of his head. He grabbed a zipper and zipped it down to reveal Koenma. "I'M REALLY KOENMA!!!"

Everybody's jaw dropped.

The now-Koenma-but-used-to-be-Karasu held up a can with 'Pepsi' written on it. "And this isn't really a Pepsi!" Koenma unzipped the can. It now said 'Pepsi Twist' on it with a lemon.

"It's really a Pepsi Twist! _With lemon!_"

Everybody sweatdropped. Youko looked horrified.

"If that's true, then _Koenma_ was the one molesting me!"

Everybody's jaws dropped.

***Suddenly, something cuts the scene into a million pieces and it falls apart, revealing a black nothingness behind it. Everything is completely silent. Suddenly, the author lady appears. Yes, the author who was hanging out with Karasu earlier and strongly resembles Shadow.

GIRL: Let's pretend that never happened. We'll go back in time to the point that Kei transformed. 

The screen fades back to how everyone looked at the point after Kei transformed.***

"Oh, how very interesting," Hiei said dryly. "I hate when things have a twist like this..."

"Get used to it," Karasu said coldly. "Here's the next twist: You are going to die. Kurama is mine."

"MY KURAMA!" Shadow screamed, jumping up with her arms wrapped around Youko's neck and her legs around his waist.

Everybody stared at her. Youko would have stared, but she was on his back, so he couldn't very well see her. This was extremely un-Shadow-like behavior. 

"Shadow? What are you doing?" Hiei asked. "I thought you hated-- Mmph!"

Youko clamped his hand over Hiei's mouth.

"SHADOW! STOP IT, YOU'RE SCARING US ALL!" Eclipse screamed. "YOU HATE HIM!!!"

Eclipse managed to get that out before Youko could clamp his hand on her mouth. But he did it anyway to keep her from repeating it.

"According to Yusuke, she _did_ say I was sexy..."

Hiei pried Youko's hand off his mouth. "Could we just get on with this? I mean, seriously, Shadow, get off his back. If you like him so much, you can hang off his back later. Right now, we have to kill Karasu and lizard-boy over here."

"My fox!"

"Oh, for God's sake," Hiei muttered. "Where's Yus-- kay? Holy God! What happened to him?!"

"I mangled him because he told Youko that I think he's sexy, which is really none... of........ his......... business...? WHAT THE HELL?!" Shadow said, leaping backwards ten feet from Youko's back. 

"SHADOW HAS SPLIT PERSONALITY!!!" Hiei screamed.

"WHO CARES?! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE FEARING ME! FIGHT ME! FIGHT _ME!!!" Karasu screamed, taking a swing at Hiei. The fire demon dodged and shot off in another direction._

"RUN!" Shadow screamed, taking off into the forest. Eclipse followed her, yelling random curses.

"SHADOW! COWARD!" Hiei yelled, but the girl was out of hearing range already. leaving Hiei and Youko alone to fight Karasu and Kei.

One and a half hours later...

"I wonder what happened to-- Never mind," Shadow said. She looked to the edge of the forest, about twenty feet away. Hiei and Kurama, now in his human form, walked out. Kurama was carrying Yusuke's still-unconscious body. Mai was trailing behind them both.

"Oh. _There_ they are," Hiei said coldly. The two walked up to meet the girls.

"Decided to ditch out on us, huh?" Kurama asked.

"Mad? Not like we could have helped," Shadow said.

"Youko thought otherwise..." Kurama muttered. "What was the deal with all that with Youko? You think he's _sexy?_ And why did you latch onto his back like that?"

"I HAVE SPLIT PERSONALITY DISORDER!!!" Shadow screamed. "BUT IT'S NOT SPLIT PERSONALITY!!!"

"What?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I kinda just zone out and do things that I wouldn't normally do in my normal, _sane_ frame of mind," Shadow explained.

"YOU? _SANE?!_ You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm sane! Don't diss me! So how'd your fight go? You look kinda beat up."

"You changed the subject. Oh well. It's obvious we won, isn't it?" Hiei asked.

"Yes, pretty much."

"Okay, that's all you need to know. Let's go."

"Go? Where?"

"HOME, dipshit!"

"Oh. Yeah. That place. Okay, yeah, let's go," Shadow said.

They started for home. Woohoo for home!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, don't even _ask_ about this chapter. It's just kinda strange. I don't know what the deal with the Pepsi Twist thing was, but anyway, _don't drink Pepsi_.** Enjoy an ice-cold Coca Cola! My dad works for Coca Cola, so I can't favor Pepsi, and I don't favor Pepsi. It's just that the Pepsi Twist commercial popped into my mind when I was writing that, so I put it in there. **

If it's against some ff.net rules to advertise things like that, SOR-_RY!!! I didn't know._

Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with ownership of any part of Coca Cola or Pepsi, so don't think I do.


	7. The Incredible Scariness of the Author L...

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

The Incredible Scariness of Author Lady's Mind.

"YOU!!!" 

Hiei and the others stopped dead. Kuwabara was sitting on the front porch of Shadow's house.

"YOU!!!" Kuwabara repeated, pointing at Hiei.

"What do you want, baka?" 

"YOU'RE... YOU'RE... YUKINA'S... YOU..."

Hiei was alarmed by the two words Kuwabara had managed to string together.

"What?! What about Yukina?"

"You're... Yukina's... b... br... You're Yukina's... No way."

"SPIT IT THE HELL OUT ALREADY, BAKA!!!"

"YOU'RE YUKINA'S BROTHER!"

Hiei's eyes started glowing. Everybody instantly backed away.

"Kuwabara."

"You... You're... You're..."

"Shut up. If you tell ANYONE about this. ANYONE. You will die."

"I already told Yukina."

Hiei let out a furious yell. He tore off his headband and pointed the palm of his right hand at Kuwabara.

"Jaou..."

"HIEI! NO DRAGON!"

"...KOKURYU-HA!!!"

Kuwabara had taken off running at the word 'Jaou,' but he was so stupid he was running in a straight line away. The dragon shot after Kuwabara.

It got closer...

And closer...

And closer... 

Until Kuwabara promptly fell in an open manhole in the street and the dragon passed straight over him. Hiei let out a string of curses and called the dragon back.

"Damn... baka... kuso... F***ing little piece of motherf***ing..." Hiei mumbled, stomping towards the hole. Luckily for Hiei, the cover was nearby. He grabbed it and dropped it onto the hole, closing it up with Kuwabara still inside.

"Hiei! You'll kill him!" Kurama said, horrified.

"THAT'S THE POINT!"

"Hey, that's one more head for my collection! Food for my weasels! Get him out! I want to behead him and feed his body to the weasels! Hiei! Please?!" Shadow begged. She really had every intention of doing all that, too.

"Shadow!"

"Let me out!" Kuwabara's screams could be heard from underground. "It's dark in here! It's scary! I can't... see!!! AH! SOMETHING TOUCHED MY LEG. LET ME OUT!"

"GO TO HELL!" Hiei screamed.

"Hiei! Please! He's so fat it would feed the weasels for weeks! I could cut off his head before I give them the body, and they wouldn't be scared of it!"

"You guys can't kill Kuwabara! Let him out!"

Hiei was standing on the cover now, so they had no hope of getting Kuwabara out that way.

"HIEI, I WANT TO FEED HIM TO THE WEASELS! PLEASE?"

"NO! SHUT UP! THAT'S TOO FAST! HE NEEDS TO SUFFER!" Hiei screamed. Shadow fell over backwards.

"Yes sir."

"YOU CAN'T. KILL. _KUWABARA_!!!" Kurama screamed. "DON'T MAKE ME HURT YOU!"

"GUYS! PLEASE! I SWEAR TO GOD THERE'S SOMETHING ALIVE DOWN HERE! AND I DON'T MEAN ME! IT'S TOUCHING ME!!!"

"It's probably Karasu," Shadow muttered.

"HELP ME, I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL NEVER DO ANYTHING AGAIN! ARE YOU GUYS STILL THERE?! EW! AHHHHH! BLOODY MURDER! BLOODY MURDER!!!"

"He's literally screaming bloody murder? Oh, dear God," Shadow said.

"BLOOOOOOOODY MUUUURRRRRRRDDDERRRRRRRRRRRR!!! IT'S TOUCHING ME! IT'S TOUCHING ME! IT'S TRYING TO EAT ME! AH! DON'T TOUCH ME THERE! LET ME GO! AHHHH! BLOODY MURDER! HOLY F***ING GOD! LET GO! AHHHHHHH!!!"

Hiei had an evil smile on his face. 

"This is great."

"NO IT'S NOT! YOU'RE GOING TO KILL HIM!" Kurama yelled.

"THAT'S THE POINT, LIKE I ALREADY SAID! SHUT UP, BAKA FOX, UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE TOO! I'M SURE THERE'S ROOM FOR TWO DOWN THERE!"

"Yeah, with the leg-touching creature and Kuwabara," Shadow said. Kurama bit his bottom lip.

"I had no part in this," he said, walking away. Yusuke had broken off from the group and gone home as soon as they got back to town, so now Kuwabara was left with three people who had no intention of saving his life. Mai had gone with Yusuke.

Not like it mattered where Mai went. She had to go. Away. Soon.

"IT'S TOUCHING MY @$$!!! GUYS! ARE YOU STILL THERE? IT'S TOUCHING ME! HOLY GOD, I WANT IT TO STOP! MOMMY!!! I WANT MY KITTY!!! I WANT MY TALKING KEN DOLL!!!"

"_Ken doll? Isn't that a male Barbie?" Shadow asked. Eclipse nodded._

"Oh, god. That's frightening to the nth degree," Hiei muttered. "Kuwabaka wants a male Barbie? He probably sleeps with it."

"Heh. Yeah. AUGH! THAT'S SCARY! HOLY GOD!"

"IT'S TOUCHING ME! IT'S--- Ooohh... That felt good..." Kuwabara's voice got quiet at the last part. Shadow, Eclipse, and Hiei looked horrified. A strange array of noises came from under the street. Hiei leaped off the cover and stood behind Shadow and Eclipse.

"I have a feeling that something we don't want to know about is happening," Hiei muttered.

"Yeah, no kidding. I'm going home," Shadow said. She tore off down the street like she was being shot at. Eclipse followed. After a second's hesitation, Hiei took off too.

Eventually, Kuwabara got out and found his way home. Nobody ever found out what those... er... questionable noises had been. Shadow suspected Karasu. How he would have gotten under the street outside her house, she didn't know, but she didn't know of any official sewer dwellers, and besides, Kuwabara had said it was dark and he couldn't see, so maybe Karasu hadn't seen that he was sexually molesting Kuwabara, not Kurama.

"So... what ever happened to Mai?" Hiei asked.

"Mai? Oh, that little short girl who thought you were her father... Got all covered in mud... Annoyed the living hell out of all of us?" Shadow said.

"Uh. Yeah."

"I don't know!"

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. She went with Yusuke after we got back, so why the hell are you asking me?" Shadow asked.

"Good point." Hiei walked out the door.

About twenty minutes later at Yusuke's house, Hiei asked the boy the same question he'd asked Shadow.

"Mai? She left. She left me a note saying that she'd decided to go home. Where ever the hell her home is. She didn't say," Yusuke answered.

"Oh. Well isn't that interesting. Bye," Hiei said. He vanished out the window.

Only Shadow knew what had really happened to Mai.

Only Shadow knew where Mai was.

Mai was dead. Her head was impaled on a stick in

***The scene gets all crumpled up like a ball of paper and a giant hand picks it up and hurls it across Kentucky. (Why Kentucky? I'm not in Kentucky. Wow. That's strange.)

GIRL: DAMN. Mai is not dead. She left and went back home, okay?

SHADOW: Why are you making all these mistakes? That's the third time in this story! I must protest.

GIRL: Well sor-ry, you fictional character! Should I bow down and kiss your damn feet?

SHADOW: NO KISSING OF FEET! THAT'S SO UNSANITARY!

GIRL: Shut up. I'll make mistakes if I want to. *pulls a bottle out of the inside of her coat and chugs the whole thing*

SHADOW: Are you drunk?!

GIRL: No! It's cream soda, you idiot!

HIEI: But you don't like cream soda. You're drunk.

GIRL: AM NOT!

SHADOW: Well, it would explain the mistakes.

GIRL: I'm not drunk! It was Mello Yello! A Coke product! Drink Coca Cola! It's just that the color of the glass bottle made it look like beer!

HIEI: Sure, sure. *grabs the bottle* Oh hey, whaddaya know? She knows what she's talking about.

GIRL: OF COURSE I DO, FICTIONAL CHARACTER! I'M THE AUTHOR!

HIEI: I'M NOT FICTIONAL!

GIRL: YES YOU ARE!

HIEI: THEN HOW AM I RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU TALKING TO YOU?!

GIRL: Good point. I'll ponder that later. Right now there's a person or two waiting for the story to continue.

SHADOW: MORE INCONSISTENCIES! You said it was cream soda, then you said it was Mello Yello. Which is it?

*The girl kills Shadow and mangles her dead body*

Back to the story! Where, due to the amazing powers of the author, Shadow is not dead!!***

So, Mai went back home. Kuwabara went back home. Hiei, hating himself all the while, erased Yukina's memory of knowing about him being her brother. Then, not hating himself all the while, Hiei blocked all of Kuwabara's memories of everything except the sexual molestation (it looks like mole station. Is molestation a word?!) in the sewer the other day. What a place for sexually molesting an ugly 15-year-old boy.

"I CAN'T REMEMBER ANYTHING! ALL I REMEMBER IS THE FEELING OF SOMETHING TOUCHING MY---"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Hiei screamed, covering his ears. "I DON'T NEED TO HEAR THAT! MY VIRGIN EARS!"

"Are you really a virgin?" Shadow asked.

"You'd like to know, wouldn't you."

"Yes. Why else would I ask?"

"For your information, it's none of your business," Hiei replied.

"I bet you aren't."

"No, I'm not, but at least I'm not as un-virgin as Kurama. Slut of the Makai."

"Hey! I resent that! That's Youko!" Kurama retorted.

"So?"

"It touched my leg... Then it touched farther up on my leg... Until it finally--" Kuwabara was still remembering his encounter with the thing in the sewer.

"HELLO! VIRGIN EARS!" Shadow screamed.

"How about you, Shadow? Are you really a virgin?"

"I'm 15. Do you think you know the answer to that?"

"Yes?"

"Yes, I am a virgin, I'M FIFTEEN FREAKING YEARS OLD, HIEI, AND I'M A NORMAL FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD, NOT ONE OF THOSE LOUSY SLUTS WHO GOES AND GETS PREGNANT AND HAS A BABY BY THIS AGE!!!"

"OKAY, WELL I WASN'T IMPLYING THAT YOU WERE!"

"GOOD!"

"Then, it touched my--" Kuwabara was saying.

"HEY!"

"And my--"

"SHUT UP!!!"

"And it--"

"SHUT UP! POOR VIRGIN EARS DO NOT NEED TO HEAR SUCH VULGAR DISGUSTINGNESS!!!" Kurama screamed. Everybody stared at him. "I was talking about Shadow, of course."

"Of course."

"So, Shadow, who do you want to be your first partner?" Kurama asked.

Boom.

"THAT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, FOX!" Shadow screamed. "I KNOW THAT WAS YOUKO ASKING THAT! TRANSFORM, KURAMA, I WANT REVENGE!!!"

"Transform? But... I don't think I want to put Youko in that much danger..."

"TRANSFORM!!! NOW, BEFORE I DRAG YOUR SOUL OUT OF YOUR BODY AND BURN IT!!!"

"Okay..." 

Poosh. Youko appeared.

"Poosh? I don't like to think of it as poosh. That's a stupid word. Where the hell did you come up with that word?"

***GIRL: DO NOT QUESTION THE AUTHOR'S CHOICE OF WORDS, YOU FICTIONAL CHARACTER! IF YOU QUESTION THE AUTHOR'S CHOICE OF WORDS, IT COULD ALWAYS BE 'POOF' AND YOU DISAPPEAR!!!***

"No, no, I'm quite fine with poosh, if you want to put it that way," Youko said, holding up his hands in surrender.

"DIE, YOU POOSH!!!" Shadow screamed, tackling the fox.

Hiei watched anxiously, hoping Youko didn't get murdered. 

"Then... Then... It reached down my--" Kuwabara was still going on. Hiei, getting sick of it, spun around and punched Kuwabara in the face. The human fell over, swirly eyed and unconscious.

"POOSH!"

"SHUT UP!"

"POOSH! YOU DARE TO ASK SUCH A SICK QUESTION OF ME?"

"YES, I DARE! I'LL ASK AGAIN, TOO! WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE YOUR--- OWWWWWW!!!"

"SHUT UP, POOSH!"

"MAKE ME!"

"I WILL!"

"LIKE YOU CAN DO ANY DAMAGE!"

"YOU WANNA BET?"

"YES!"

"TWENTY BUCKS!"

"FINE!"

"HA!"

"OW! GOD, THAT HURT! LOOK, IT'S BLEEDING!"

"I DID DAMAGE! YOU OWE ME TWENTY BUCKS!"

"ALL YOU DID WAS BITE ME!"

"SO? IT'S BLEEDING, ISN'T IT?"

"THAT'S SICK! YES IT IS! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE FANGS LIKE THAT!"

"TOO BAD! I DO! GIMME MY MONEY!"

"NO!"

Pow.

"OUCH!"

"MONEY!"

"NO!"

Thud.

"OW!"

"MONEY!"

"NO!"

Crack.

"AGH!"

"_MONEY!"_

"**_NO!_"**

Whack.

"OWWW!"

"**MONEY!"**

"**_NO!_"**

Thwack.

Needless to say, this went on for quite a while.

Eventually, Shadow got her $20 from Youko. Hiei finally unblocked Kuwabara's memories, except that he erased the memory of the little discovery about Yukina.

They all lived happily ever after.

Owari.

***HIEI: _Happily ever after?_

GIRL: Well how the heck did you think it should end?

HIEI: Not with 'happily ever after,' that's for sure.

GIRL: Shut up, you. I'll erase you.

HIEI: Bye! *leaves*

GIRL: OWARI! Now leave me alone.***


End file.
